It was a manic Monday for the Indian markets with the benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex slipping to its second biggest points' fall and the lowest since August in line with an Asia-wide slide after the Federal Reserve cut its discount interest rate at an emergency meeting and JPMorgan Chase agreed to buy sub-prime hit Bear Stearns for less than a tenth of its value last week.

With Monday's fall, the Indian markets have lost over Rs 25 lakh crore (Rs 25 trillion) since the Sensex peak of 20,800-levels on January 8. The Sensex is now nearly 30 per cent down from the early January peak. On Monday alone, the market cap wipe-off was Rs 3,25,426 crore (Rs 3,254.26 billion).

The Sensex -- which slipped by over 1,000 points in intra-day trade -- closed at 14,809.5, down 951 points from Friday. Shares of consumer durables (down 9.69 per cent) and banks (down 9.06 per cent) led the fall.

ICICI Bank [Get Quote] slumped the most in 6 � years, while Reliance Industries [Get Quote] fell to its lowest in six months as the price of oil reached a record.

Big selling of shares worth Rs 1,400 crore (Rs 14 billion) from Bear Stearns' portfolio in India also triggered the collapse. "Normally, insurance companies step in to buy during a big fall. On Monday, that did not happen and hence the deep cut on Monday," said a dealer.

Foreign institutional investors sold a net of Rs 658.22 crore (Rs 6.58 billion) on Monday in the cash segment, adding up their total net sales in the segment this calendar to over Rs 37,000 crore (Rs 370 billion). Local institutions bought a net of Rs 211 crore (Rs 2.11 billion) on Monday.

"Quite frankly, we are yet to see the end of the bad news. The value of the derivatives is normally audited on a quarterly basis. We could see more firms getting hit by the derivatives exposure and the existing ones reporting bigger losses," said P R Ramesh, partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells.

Concerns of a slowdown in the Indian economy also weighed heavily on investors. Global stock markets lost $2.4 trillion in market value from a peak in October as of March 14.

The dollar sank to a record low against the euro and the Swiss franc and fell to the weakest in 12 years against the yen, helping push gold and crude oil to highs.

Experts and analysts feel that the bottom is not yet in sight, given that more bad news could originate from the US.

"It is a tough call to make. I think, the bottom for our market is not in sight yet. Everyone is waiting on the sidelines for the market to stabilise. Even mutual funds, which are sitting on cash, are not investing," said S Ramesh, COO of Kotak Mahindra Capital Co Ltd.

Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in June slumped 1.8 per cent to 1,269.7 as of 10:17 a.m. in London. The index will slip into a bear market should it drop below 1,252.12, 20 per cent lower than its October 9 record and 2.3 percentage points from its current level, said a Bloomberg report.

Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index fell 2.9 per cent, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 2.4 per cent to 132.71, 23 per cent off its November high.

Chennai-based pharma stock Orchid Chemicals dived by over 40 per cent after Macquarie Securities sold its holdings on Monday, said dealers.

• The 10 biggest falls of the Sensex