Sensex down 300 points in opening trade; Nifty has gone below 18,000.
Equity benchmark Sensex tumbled over 300 points in early trade on Thursday, tracking losses in index-major HDFC twins, ICICI Bank and Infosys amid a largely negative trend in global markets and sustained foreign fund outflows.
In early deals, the 30-share index was trading at 60,049.75, down 303.07 points or 0.50 per cent. Similarly, Nifty closed at 17,914.60, down 102.60 points or 0.57 per cent.
Tech Mahindra was the top loser in the Sensex pack, falling nearly 2 per cent, followed by HDFC, SBI, Nestle India, Axis Bank, HCL Tech and ICICI Bank.
On the other hand, Titan, Tata Steel, L&T, Bharti Airtel and Maruti were among the gainers.
In the previous session, the Sensex was down 80.63 points or 0.13 per cent at 60,352.82 and the Nifty was down 27.05 points or 0.15 per cent at 18,017.20.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market as they sold shares worth Rs 469.50 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.
“Rising inflation is emerging as a threat to the global equity rally, at least in the short term,” said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist, Geojit Financial Services.
Consumer price inflation in the US hit a 30-year high of 6.2 percent on a year-on-year basis in October. In China too, producer price inflation has risen to 13.5 percent. He cautioned that this has the potential to spread to global commodity inflation.
Sensing further danger, the US 10-year yield rose to 1.57 per cent.
“The Fed still believes that the rise in inflation is caused by supply-side issues and, therefore, is transient. But there are many who believe that the Fed is behind the curve and that infiltrating inflation is causing the Fed to accelerate tapering. and increase the advance rates.
“If this scenario unfolds, there could be a selloff and a sharp correction in the markets globally,” he said.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong and Seoul were trading with losses in mid-session deals, while Shanghai and Tokyo were positive.
Major indices on Wall Street ended the overnight session on a negative note. Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude rose 0.23 per cent to $82.83 a barrel.
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