Sensex Today: After a week of sharp gains, equity benchmark indices saw a negative start to Thursday’s trade, tracking losses across global markets ahead of Friday’s jobs data in the US. The BSE Sensex fell 200 points to 69,444 and the NSE Nifty50 slipped 56 points to 20,881.
HUL, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, Neslte and Sun Pharma led losses on the Sensex, while Apollo Hospitals, ONGC and Britannia were the top Nifty losers.
On the flip side, Ultratech Cement, MAruti, NTPC, Adani Ports, BPCL and Adani Ent were among the frontline gainers.
The BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices also fell by 0.2 per cent each.
Among stocks, Paytm cracked 20 per cent on its plan to reduce below Rs 50,000-loan disbursements after RBI’s tightening of consumer credit norms.
Nifty Pharma, Realty indices were the only sectoral pockets to hold small gains of 0.12-0.23 per cent, while others sat in red.
Stock Market View: Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services
There are three factors that can keep the market resilient. One, steady decline in U.S. bond yields (10-year around 4.1% now) has created a global environment favourable for equities. Two, India’s GDP growth rate is improving and inflation is coming down. The steadily declining crude price is another big positive. Three, political uncertainty surrounding the 2024 General elections appears to be out of the way after the crucial state election results. These factors have emboldened the bulls and bears have been forced to cover their short positions. In spite of these favourable factors, there will be dips in the market triggered by profit booking at higher levels.
Global Cues
Asian shares fell with Wall Street on Thursday, while a sharp fall in oil prices to a five-month low promised to further reduce inflationary pressures and helped boost the global bond market.
There was also a soft reading on the U.S. labour market overnight. Analysts note the ADP private payrolls report is historically not a very reliable predictor of the official non-farm payroll report due on Friday, making the weekly jobless claims later in the day more important.
Equities in Asia mirrored weakness on Wall Street while Treasuries steadied following a rally after fresh data indicated labor market softness. Equities in Japan and Australia opened lower while futures contracts for Hong Kong benchmarks also slipped. That followed a third daily decline for the S&P 500.
US stocks ended down on Wednesday, pulled lower by megacaps and energy shares as signs of a cooling jobs market reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve could start cutting interest rates early next year.
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