Sensex closes 110 points lower; Nifty ends below 16,300

Benchmark indices closed marginally lower on Wednesday.

Market opened on a positive note amid mixed global cues. However, indices erased all early gains and closed marginally lower, witnessing selling pressure across multiple counters.

The BSE Sensex closed at 54,208.53, down 109.94 points or 0.20 per cent. It recorded an intraday high of 54,786.00 and a low of 54,130.89. The Nifty 50 closed at 16,240.30, down 19.00 points or 0.12 per cent. It recorded an intraday high of 16,399.80 and a low of 16,211.20.

Breadth remains positive

The market breadth remained positive with 1,910 stocks advancing on the BSE as against 1,440 that declined, while 116 remained unchanged. Furthermore, 13 stocks hit the upper circuit as compared to the 144 stocks that were locked in the lower circuit. Besides, 59 stocks touched a 52-week high level and 34 touched a 52-week low.

Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities Ltd said, “The sharp rally in the previous session failed to add fizz in today’s trades, as the market did not capitalise on the firm start and rather turned range-bound to end marginally lower. The rampant FII selling has been weighing on investors’ minds, and worries about subdued growth going ahead due to rising interest rates is hurting the sentiment.”

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said, “With the support from Pharma and FMCG stocks, the domestic market had a steady run until the weak opening of the European market. UK’s soaring retail inflation number along with Fed Chair’s reassurance on bringing down the inflation, disturbed the sentiment, risking sharper rate hikes. With prospects of a sizeable interest rate hike by the global central banks, investors are advised to allocate higher weightage to sectors that are least affected by such policies like defensives.”

Tata Consumer, Hindustan Unilever, Ultratech Cement, Shree Cement and Adani Ports were the top gainers on the Nifty 50 while Powergrid, BPCL, Tech Mahindra, Apollo Hospitals and State Bank of India were the top losers. 

FMCG, Pharma in focus 

On the sectoral front, a majority of indices closed in the red.

While realty, PSU Bank, consumer durables and oil & gas dragged, pharma, healthcare and FMCG gained focus.

Nifty Realty was down 1.75 per cent while Nifty PSU Bank was down 1.57 per cent. Nifty Consumer Durables was down 0.50 per cent at closing while Nifty Oil & Gas was down 0.49 per cent. Nifty IT was down 0.47 per cent while Nifty Bank was down 0.40 per cent.

Meanwhile, Nifty Pharma and Nifty FMCG each closed over 1 per cent higher. Nifty Healthcare Index was up 0.60 per cent.

Broader indices

Broader market also faced pressure.

Nifty Midcap 50 was down 0.19 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 50 was down 0.27 per cent. The S&P BSE Midcap was down 0.13 per cent while the S&P BSE Smallcap was up 0.33 per cent.

The volatility index softened 1.96 per cent to 22.30.

COMMENT NOW