Stock market downward trend continues; Sensex falls 300 points, Nifty reaches below 23750

New Delhi| The Indian stock market’s key benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty 50, opened once again in the red in quarterly results on Wednesday amid a slowdown in companies’ earnings and weak global cues. Nifty opened at 23,822.45, and BSE Sensex opened at 78,495.53.

Markets fell for the fourth consecutive day on Wednesday, driven by concerns of weak income and foreign fund outflows. Shares of NTPC, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Tata Motors and Asian Paints made major gains in the opening hour of trading on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), while Mahindra & Mahindra fell more than 2.42 per cent among losers, followed by Maruti, BPSL, Apollo Hospitals and Nestle India.

Domestically, investor sentiment was affected by India’s October-month retail inflation, which rose to a 14-month high of 6.21 per cent from 5.49 per cent in September, with inflation moving above the RBI target range.

This has dampened expectations of a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its upcoming monetary policy review from December 4-6. Additionally, India’s Index of Industrial Production (IIP) showed a 3.1 percent increase in September, better than a 0.1 percent decline in August.

“Investors are now awaiting key U.S. inflation data, which will provide insight into the Federal Reserve’s next move on interest rates, which contributes to increased market volatility globally”, said Varun Agarwal, MD, Profit Idea Looking at the market movements, Akshay Chinchalkar, head of research at Axis Securities, said that after yesterday’s fall in Nifty, the focus is now on the important support sector spanning from 23,700 to 23,779.

On the other hand, global markets also showed weakness, the momentum in Wall Street faded due to the results of the US presidential election. Both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones weakened after five days of gains on Tuesday. Asian markets also recorded a decline on Wednesday.

Apart from this, market participants will also keep an eye on the second quarter results of big companies like Apollo Tyres, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers, PI Industries, AstraZeneca Pharma. Companies like Western Carriers India, Brigade Enterprises, Deepak Nitrite, Bare CropScience, Thermax, Thomas Cook (India) and Senco Gold will also declare their financial results for the second quarter.

The rupee fell one paise to 84.40 per dollar in early trade on Wednesday amid sustained outflows of foreign capital and a softening trend in domestic stock markets. The rupee opened at 84.40 per dollar in the interbank foreign exchange market, representing a fall of one penny against the previous closing price.

The rupee had closed at its all-time low of 84.39 against the US dollar on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the dollar index, reflecting the position of the US dollar against the six major currencies, declined by 0.04 per cent to 105.98.

International standard Brent crude was up 0.25 percent at $72.07 a barrel. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were selling on Tuesday and sold shares worth a net Rs 3,024.31 crore, according to stock market data.