Sensex falls over 1,000 points, Nifty below 15,400
Sensex, Nifty News Today: The benchmark indices were choppy in the afternoon session as Sensex shed over 1,000 points to trade below 52,000 and Nifty was down over 300 points to trade below 15,400.
In the opening session, indices bounced back after four days of losses as the 30-share pack Sensex settled over 600 points and Nifty settled above 18,850 after jumping 171 points.
45 stocks out of Nifty 50 and all sectoral indices of Nifty were seen trading in red color at 2:30 pm. There was a free fall in the Nifty Metal index with a fall of over 4%. Nifty Bank, Nifty IT and Nifty Auto fell 2% each.
From the Nifty 50 pack, Tata Steel was the top laggard, followed by Hindalco, Bharti Airtel, Coal India, Tata Motors and ONGC (all down over 4%) at 2:30 pm. Only Britannia, Maruti, Asian Paint, Hindustan Unilever and Nestle India were seen trading in green. Index heavyweight Reliance Industries also dragged the market.
According to the BSE website at 2:30 pm, the remaining 28 stocks from the Sensex pack, barring Maruti and Nestle India, lagged behind.
Nifty at 15,000?
Manoj Dalmiya, Founder and Director, Profitable Equities said that Nifty has broken the major support of 15,500. He said, ‘Nifty can remain in the range of 15,000-15,700 in the coming days. If it weakens further then 14,200 may be possible.
Ravi Singhal, Vice Chairman, GCL Securities Limited said that Nifty is looking weak. “It may test 15,000 soon,” he said.
At the time of writing this report, Dow Jones Futures was showing weakness of over 500 points while Nasdaq Futures was seen trading down 340 points.
Earlier on Wednesday, stock exchanges in the US ended the overnight session with sharp gains after the benchmark lending rate, as expected, was hiked by the Federal Reserve by 75 basis points.
On Wednesday, the Sensex closed 152.18 points or 0.29 per cent lower at 52,541.39 in the previous session, while the Nifty was down 39.95 points or 0.25 per cent at 15,692.15. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market as they sold shares worth Rs 3,531.15 crore.