Stock Market Update: Sensex Slides 200 pts At Open, Nifty Holds 17,900; Key Points

Sensex Today: Indian equity markets opened on a tepid note on Thursday morning ahead of the weekly F&O expiry amid weak global cues. Frontline indices Nifty50 declined over 30 points to trade below 17,950 levels and the S&P BSE Sensex dropped 100 points at 60,160 levels.

Broader markets, however, inched up as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 surged up to 0.2 per cent.

Bajaj Twins, Power Grid, Bharti Airtel, and Ultratech Cement were top contributors to the benchmark indices. Meanwhile, Dr Reddy’s, Sun Pharma, Wipro, Tech Mahindra weighed on the indices.

Sector-wise, Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Realty were the winners. Nifty Pharma and Nifty Bank, however, were the losers among the pack.

Among individual stocks, shares of Sona Comstar shed over 4 per cent after block deal. Besides, shares of Unitech gained over 3 per cent after the apex court asked board to upload completion timeline of stalled projects.

Anand James – chief market strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said: “As we re-approach the psychological mark of 18k, the evolution of VIX would be crucial. Favoured view continues to expect Nifty to head into the 18,100-18,200 before any major attempt to reverse. Downside markers may be pushed higher towards 17,835/45 for intraday trades, but just as we maintained yesterday, there are not enough signs of topping out, for which reason, we will continue to maintain the 17,660 region as the main reversal point.”

Global Cues

Asian shares tracked lower on Thursday, in step with Wall Street’s losses, as even the prospect of a less aggressive Federal Reserve has still set the U.S. central bank on a path for interest rates to stay higher for longer.

Tokyo shares opened lower Thursday following US losses, while investors locked in profits after recent market gains. The headline Nikkei 225 index fell 0.93 percent or 273.02 points to 28,949.75 in early trade, while the broader Topix index lost 0.76 percent or 15.35 points to 1,991.64.

Globally, the minutes of the US FOMC meeting signaled slower pace of rate hikes going forward. This, coupled with weak set of retail earnings, weighed on the US markets on Wednesday. Dow Jones slipped 0.5 per cent, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.7 per cent, and NASDAQ Composite declined 1.2 per cent.

Read the Latest News and Breaking News here