New Delhi: Continued selling pressure by foreign institutional investors coupled with weakness in rupee subdued Indian equity indices on Friday. As per data, FIIs sold Rs 3,148.58 crore on BSE, NSE and MSEI in the capital market segment. Besides, global inflationary woes as well as rise in crude oil prices supported the downtrend.
Globally, European shares dropped on Friday, following on from losses in Asia and a late slump in the US as fears about the pace of monetary policy tightening and a batch of weaker-than-expected earnings knocked investor confidence again.
On the domestic front, volumes on the NSE were a little higher than recent averages.
Among sectors, FMCG was the only sectoral index that ended in the positive whereas Realty, Metals, Consumer Durables, Capital Goods, Telecom, IT fell the most.
Consequently, the S&P BSE Sensex settled 0.7 per cent or 427 points down at 59,037 points, whereas NSE Nifty50 ended at 0.8 per cent or 140 points down at 17,617 points.
“Nifty declined for the fourth consecutive session on Jan 21 as global markets again came under selling pressure,” said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.
“Nifty ended the week with the worst losses in about two months. This suggest that the nervousness has spread to the broader markets.”
According to Siddhartha Khemka, Head – Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services: “Nifty has corrected almost 750 points from its recent peak.”
“Globally induced volatility, mixed set of results and heavy FII selling have added pressure in the market. Results from heavyweight Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank over the weekend would provide market direction on Monday.”
In addition, Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said: “(Also), weak sentiments from global markets due to persistent inflationary worries and weaker-than-expected earnings added to the selling pressure.”
“Along with global disturbances, the uncertainties regarding the upcoming Budget is likely to keep the domestic market highly volatile in the coming days,” he added.
On the stocks front, Bajaj Finserv, Tech Mahindra, Shree Cement, Coal India and Divi’s Labs were the top five losers, declining 5.1 per cent, 4.6 per cent, 4.5 per cent, 3.7 per cent, and 3.3 per cent, respectively.
Bajaj Auto, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti Suzuki, Hero Motocorp, and HDFC Bank were the top performers on Friday.”Indices witnessed a 4 per cent cut this week as FPI booked profits across large-caps and select high quality mid-caps. Rising oil and input prices coupled with a moderating rural economy kept investors watchful as markets turned volatile,” said S. Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP securities.
“Most of the sectoral indices except the FMCG index ended in the red on a big earnings day of Reliance, which helped indices recoup losses for the day in late afternoon trade.”
