Sensex slips again, Nifty falls below 24400
New Delhi| The game of ups and downs has continued in the domestic stock market even on the day of expiry of futures trading. Like the last few days, on Thursday morning too, the major benchmark indices of the Indian market, Sensex and Nifty, were seen swinging between the green and red marks.
Sensex slipped to 200 in early trade, while Nifty reached below 24300. At 9:053 am, the Sensex was seen trading at 79,916.91, down 165.07 (0.20%) points. On the other hand, Nifty reached 24,382.80 with a weakness of 52.71 (0.22%) points.
The indices weakened despite a rally in early trade on Thursday after continued withdrawal of foreign funds and disappointing Hindustan Unilever results affected investor sentiment.
BSE Sensex rose 177.84 points to 80,259.82 in early trade. Whereas NSE Nifty rose by 45.15 points to reach 24,480.65 points. However, benchmark indices soon began selling and traded lower. The BSE benchmark index was trading down 219.12 points at 79,862.86 and the Nifty was trading down 74 points at 24,361.50.
Hindustan Unilever, among the 30 Sensex companies, fell more than 5 per cent as the FMCG chief projected consolidated net profit to fall 2.33 per cent to Rs 2,595 crore in the second quarter ended September 2024 due to softening demand from the urban market.
Nestle, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finserv, ICICI Bank and Maruti were the other major losers. Shares of HDFC Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, Sun Pharma, Power Grid and HCL Tech rose.
On Wednesday, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 5,684.63 crore, according to exchange data. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth Rs 6,039.90 crore.
According to NSDL data, the biggest challenge facing the market is heavy, unprecedented and sustained FII selling, which has reached Rs 93,088 crore as of October 23. The root cause of FII selling is high valuations in the Indian market and relatively cheap and attractive valuations in markets like China and Hong Kong.
“The bullish trend in the market is not due to the downward trend in income growth, the market is seeing selling at every rally, the near-term market structure is turning into ‘sold at a boom'”, said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services
In Asian markets, Tokyo remained bullish, while Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong declined. American markets closed in negative territory on Wednesday.
Prashant Taapsee, senior vice president (research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said, “After a tough trading session, optimism in our markets has subsided, just like a kite gets stuck on a branch”. Nifty has closed in the red for three consecutive days. Many reasons are controlling bullish emotions. These include corporate India’s disappointing second quarter earnings, continued selling by FIIs, concerns over the pace of US interest rate cuts and rising US bond yields.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose 1.25 percent to $75.90 a barrel. The rupee was seen trading flat against the dollar. On Wednesday, BSE Sensex had closed down 138.74 points, or 0.17 percent, at 80,081.98 points. Nifty had closed at 24,435.50 points, down 36.60 points or 0.15 percent.
