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Benchmark indices were trading lower during the afternoon on Thursday, dragged by IT stocks.
Market erased all early gains as selling emerged in heavyweights such as Reliance, IT and metals stocks. However, financials gained focus.
At 1 pm, the BSE Sensex was trading at 60,921.93, down 338.03 points or 0.55 per cent, near the day’s low of 60,687.99. It hit an intraday high of 61,621.20. The Nifty 50 was trading at 18,177.00, down 89.60 points or 0.49 per cent. It hit an intraday high of 18,384.20 and a low of 18,106.65.
Kotak Bank, Grasim, BPCL, HDFC and Tata Motors were the top gainers on the Nifty 50 while Reliance, Dr Reddy, Infosys, Hindalco and Bharti Airtel were the top laggards.
According to Dr V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, “There are mixed cues for the market with some global tailwinds and domestic headwinds. Strength in the mother market US, declining dollar index and stability in European markets are positives.”
“But these positives are likely to be overwhelmed by domestic headwinds like high valuations which have become unsustainable, and rising commodity inflation which will impact the margins of firms. Sustained selling by institutions — both DIIs and FIIs — indicate that smart money regards the market as overheated and overvalued. The institutional sell figure of ₹3,523 crore yesterday indicates that there can be further selling on rallies,” added Dr Vijayakumar.
Financials in focus
On the sectoral front, a majority of indices were in the red. Financials managed to retain gains even as IT, metals, consumer durables and pharma dragged.
Nifty IT was down 2.33 per cent while Nifty Metal was down 1.07 per cent. Nifty Consumer Durables was down 1.28 per cent. Nifty Pharma and Nifty Healthcare Index were down 1 per cent and 0.83 per cent, respectively.
Meanwhile, Nifty Bank was up 0.43 per cent while Nifty Financial Services was up 0.72 per cent. Nifty Private Bank and Nifty Public Bank were trading 0.44 per cent and 2.36 per cent higher, respectively.
Broader indices
The broader market also continued to witness selling pressure.
The Nifty Midcap 50 was down 0.44 per cent while the Nifty Smallcap 50 was down 0.30 per cent. The S&P BSE Midcap was down 0.52 per cent while the S&P BSE Smallcap was down 0.44 per cent.
The volatility index softened 0.76 per cent to 18.17.
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