Falling for the fifth straight session, the BSE benchmark Sensex on Monday plunged by 467 points to close at a one-month low as investors were spooked by fears of interest rate hike and developed economies might divert funds away from emerging markets.

The 30-share index, which had lost 868 points in the last four trading sessions, closed at 19,224.12 points, losing 467.69 points over the previous close. The index had recorded such the biggest fall of 493 points this year on 7th January.

The broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty dropped by 141.75 points to 5,762.85 points, as interest sensitive sectors suffered the most.

The benchmark index is set for its longest losing streak in eight months as foreign funds and general investors indulged in taking out their money amid concerns that rising food inflation would prompt the Reserve Bank of India to tighten monetary policy this month.

The food inflation shot up to nearly a year’s high of 18.32 percent last week, due to spurt in vegetables, onion and milk prices, increasing pressure on government and the RBI to intervene.

Selling pressure spread over a wide-front and almost all the sectoral indices, including smallcap and midcap, closed in the negative zone.

A weakening trend in the Asian region and lower opening in the European markets further fuelled the down-trend. The MSCI Asia Pacific Excluding Index fell to its lowest level in almost two weeks.

Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite Index slumped 4.2 percent, its biggest loss since November 2008 and the most among the region’s benchmark indexes.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index sank 2.1 percent and China’s Shanghai Composite Index by 1.7 percent.

In the 30 index components, barring Infosys Technologies and Bharti Airtel, all 28 stocks closed with moderate to heavy losses.

The interest-related realty sector index suffered the most losing 3.55 percent to 2,570.94 with stocks of DLF, HDIL, Unitech and Sobha Developers recording fresh losses.

The capital goods sector index, a club of heavy-machinery companies, was the second worst performer shedding 3.52 percent to 14,165.33 on fears the interest hike would create hurdle for development and construction.

The consumer durable index fell by 3.26 per cent to 5,912.18 and banking index by 3 per cent to 12,137.39. The smallcap index fell by 2.83 per cent to 9,098.66 followed by midcap index by 2.34 per cent to 7,295.81.