
The Indian stock market experienced a severe selloff on Monday, 18 May, with both benchmark indices declining significantly. According to market reports, the Sensex crashed over 900 points while the Nifty 50 fell more than 1% during intraday trading. The broad-based decline affected all market segments, reflecting widespread investor pessimism amid challenging market conditions. Latest reports indicate that both Sensex and Nifty slipped sharply during trading, wiping out nearly ₹7 lakh crore in market value within hours.
The market crash resulted in substantial losses for investors across the board. As reported by market sources, investors lost ₹7 lakh crore during the trading session. This massive erosion in investor wealth highlights the severity of the market downturn and the widespread nature of the selling pressure that swept across the Indian equity markets. The latest figures show this represents one of the sharpest single-day shocks seen in recent weeks, as traders and market participants describe the volatility as unprecedented.
The market decline was primarily triggered by concerns around the latest gold-related rule changes that created panic among investors. According to market analysts, these regulatory changes have created uncertainty across the market, particularly affecting banking, finance, and jewellery-related stocks which faced heavy pressure as uncertainty grew. The sudden volatility came due to fears over tighter regulations and changing investment sentiment, with experts noting that global market weakness added to the overall pressure on domestic markets.
The selloff was characterized as a strong across-segments selloff that affected all market segments during intraday trading. As reported by market sources, the decline was not limited to any specific sector or market capitalization, indicating that the selling pressure was widespread and affected all investor categories. This broad-based nature of the decline contributed to the significant losses recorded during the session, with particular impact on banking, finance, and jewellery sectors due to the gold-related rule changes.