Sensex Today Live: In line with the negative trend in Asian markets and recent withdrawals of foreign funds, equity benchmark indices fell in early trade on Friday, extending their slide from the previous day. Globally increasing interest rates also reduced investor confidence.
Following the recent rise, during which the BSE barometer reached its all-time intraday high of 63,601.71 on Thursday, markets also declined as investors took profits.
The Sensex pack’s main laggards included Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Power Grid, Tata Steel, UltraTech Cement, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finserv, HCL Technologies, and Bajaj Finance.
Gainers were Asian Paints, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, and Nestle.
Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong were trading at lower prices on Asian exchanges.
On Thursday, the US stock markets came to a mixed conclusion.
“The market’s momentum has slowed down since the Sensex reached record highs. Globally, the markets are not now in a positive attitude. The main source of concern is still the increase in interest rates. The Bank of England stunned everyone yesterday by raising interest rates by 50 basis points, after rate increases of 25 bps by the ECB and Swiss National Bank.
According to V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, “the message from the leading central banks—reiterated by the Fed in its recent Congressional testimony—is that they will not let down on containing inflation and there is a long way to go before the inflation target of 2% is reached.
Benchmark Brent crude dropped by USD 0.70 percent.
According to exchange statistics, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares of stock on Thursday totaling Rs 693.28 crore.
On Thursday, the BSE Sensex dropped 284.26 points, or 0.45%, to close at 63,238.89. The Nifty finished at 18,771.25 after falling 85.60 points or 0.45%.