Mumbai. Amid continuous withdrawal of foreign funds and weak trend of global markets, local markets fell on Wednesday due to heavy selling in shares of information technology (IT) and automobile sectors. The benchmark index Sensex fell 319 points while Nifty fell below the 25,000-point level.
BSE’s benchmark index Sensex based on 30 shares remained in decline for the second consecutive day and closed at 81,501.36, slipping 318.76 points or 0.39 percent. At one time during trading it had fallen by 461.86 points to 81,358.26 points.
The standard index Nifty of National Stock Exchange (NSE) also closed at 24,971.30 points with a decline of 86.05 points or 0.34 percent.
Among Sensex companies, shares of Mahindra & Mahindra, Infosys, Kotak Mahindra Bank, JSW Steel, Adani Ports, Tata Motors, ITC and Titan fell the most. On the other hand, shares of HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, Asian Paints and State Bank of India closed with profits.
Vinod Nair, head of research, Geojit Financial Services, said, “Due to the fear of lower earnings of companies in the financial year 2024-25, the market traded in a limited range with a negative trend. “This may affect the sustainability of premium valuations.” Nair said that the pace of income growth is likely to slow down in the second quarter. This may be due to weak demand and fluctuations in raw material prices.
In the broader market, the BSE Midcap index declined by 0.10 percent while the Smallcap index recorded a rise of 0.31 percent.
Among the sector wise indices, IT segment declined by 1.17 percent and automobile segment declined by 0.97 percent while telecom segment gained 0.91 percent and realty segment gained 0.64 percent.
Prashant Tapse, Senior Vice President (Research), Mehta Equities Limited, said, “Markets remained in a range under the influence of negative sentiment as investors preferred profit booking in select stocks. Weak global cues also increased the overall weakness of the market. “Domestic traders have also become cautious due to selling by foreign investors.” According to stock market data, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 1,748.71 crore on Tuesday.
In other markets of Asia, South Korea’s Kospi, Japan’s Nikkei and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed with a decline, while China’s Shanghai Composite registered a rise. European markets were in negative territory in afternoon trading. American markets closed with a decline on Tuesday. Global oil standard Brent crude rose 0.08 percent to $ 74.32 per barrel. On Tuesday, BSE Sensex fell 152.93 points to close at 81,820.12 points and NSE Nifty closed 70.60 points weaker at 25,057.35 points.