Mumbai. The local stock market fell for the second consecutive day on Thursday and the BSE Sensex lost its initial gains and ended 151 points lower. The market fell due to decline in Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel and L&T amid negative trend in global markets.
The BSE Sensex, based on 30 shares, closed at 82,201.16 points with a fall of 151.48 points or 0.18 percent. At one point during trading, it had come down to 222.2 points. The National Stock Exchange’s Nifty also started trading positively. Despite this, it closed at 25,145.10 points with a fall of 53.60 points or 0.21 percent.
Senior Vice President (Research) of Mehta Equities Ltd. Parasnath Tapase said, “The market ended with volatility amid profit booking in Reliance Industries. Globally, the trend in most stock markets remained sluggish to mixed. Investors are waiting for the key US data to be released on Friday. This is expected to give indications about the Federal Reserve’s stance on cutting the policy rate in its monetary policy announcement this month.” Out of the 30 companies of the Sensex, Reliance Industries fell by more than one percent. Apart from this, shares of Tata Motors, Nestle, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, Larsen & Toubro, JSW Steel and Mahindra & Mahindra also came down.
On the contrary, Titan, ITC, Infosys, HCL Technologies, Tata Steel and State Bank of India are among the gainers. The BSE Smallcap index, representing the shares of small companies, rose 0.56 percent while the index related to mid-sized companies strengthened by 0.27 percent.
Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities said, “The trend in global stock markets remained weak. Traders are waiting for the data to be released in the US. This is expected to give some clarity on the economy there and the Federal Reserve’s stance on interest rates.” Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services said, “There was a slight decline in the standard indices due to concerns about the slowdown in the US and Chinese economy. The market is now waiting for the stance of the Federal Reserve…” In other Asian markets, South Korea’s Kospi and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng were in loss, while China’s Shanghai Composite was in profit.
There was a downtrend in the afternoon trade in major European markets. US markets had a mixed trend on Wednesday. According to stock market data, foreign institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 975.46 crore on Wednesday. Global oil benchmark Brent crude rose 1.14 percent to $ 73.53 per barrel. The Sensex was down 202.80 points on Wednesday while the Nifty fell 81.15 points.