Mumbai. The trend of decline in the local stock market continued for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday and BSE Sensex fell by 17 points. Due to continued capital withdrawal by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and financial results not being as per expectations, there was selling in the shares of daily use goods and automobile companies.
Trading in BSE Sensex based on 30 shares was light and it closed at 80,065.16 points with a decline of 16.82 points or 0.02 percent. During trading, the index reached a high of 80,259.82 points while the low reached 79,813.02 points. In volatile trading, National Stock Exchange’s Nifty also closed at 24,399.40 points with a decline of 36.10 points or 0.15 percent.
Among Sensex stocks, Hindustan Unilever fell by nearly six per cent. Its shares fell after the integrated net profit of the daily consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturing company declined by 2.33 per cent to Rs 2,595 crore in the second quarter of the current financial year. The company’s profit has been affected mainly due to softening of demand in the urban market. Apart from this, shares of Nestle, ITC, Maruti, Asian Paints, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Larsen & Toubro and HCL Technologies also fell. On the other hand, the profitable stocks include UltraTech Cement, Mahindra & Mahindra, Titan, Adani Ports, State Bank of India and Power Grid.
Vinod Nair, head of research, Geojit Financial Services, said, “Despite continuous withdrawal of FIIs, there was a slight decline in the benchmark indices. The survey (PMI) data conducted among purchasing managers for the month of October is continuously indicating good growth. “This also supports RBI’s growth projections for the financial year 2024-25.” He said, “Overall there was a mixed trend in the market. The reason for this is the improvement in valuation levels in public sector undertakings and banks and financial stocks. At the same time, due to softening of demand and margin pressure, there was a decline in FMCG companies. According to stock market data, foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 5,684.63 crore on Wednesday. Whereas domestic institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 6,039.90 crore.
Religare Broking Ltd. Senior Vice President (Research) of Ajit Mishra said that there was a decline in the stock market on the last day of weekly settlement of deals. The market remained almost stable amid mixed signals. The BSE Smallcap index related to small companies fell 0.72 percent while the Midcap index related to medium companies fell 0.13 percent.
In other markets of Asia, South Korea’s Kospi, China’s Shanghai Composite and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng were in loss while Japan’s Nikkei was in profit. There was a positive trend during trading in European markets, while there was a decline in the American market on Wednesday. Global oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 1.99 percent to $76.45 per barrel. BSE Sensex fell by 138.74 points on Wednesday, while Nifty fell by 36.60 points.