Sensex falls over 250 points, Nifty trades below 18,700; HCC & Adani Enterprises fall up to 5%; Tube Investments jumps 4%

Indian equity benchmarks traded lower in early deals on Friday, taking cues from the Asian markets. The domestic indices were dragged by weakness across all sectors due to profit-booking at record levels. The 30-share BSE Sensex pack fell 258 points or 0.41 per cent to trade at 62,981, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 84 points or 0.45 per cent down to trade at 18,687. Mid- and small-cap shares were negative as Nifty Midcap 100 slipped 0.85 per cent and small-cap dropped 0.77 per cent.

Sensex hit new record highs in each of the previous two sessions, while Nifty came within one point of its all-time high on Thursday before witnessing selling pressure at near-record levels.

"After Sensex hitting record highs, the market momentum has slowed down. The mood in the markets now is not so bullish, globally. Investors should remain cautious and focus on domestic cyclicals like autos, realty and capital goods to buy on dips," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

On the global front, Asian markets were down today. Overnight, Wall Street equities eked out gains overnight after US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reassured that the central bank would proceed with caution, but suggested that it had not reached the end of its tightening cycle.

Back home, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold Rs 693 crore worth of Indian equities on a net basis during the previous session, while domestic investors bought Rs 219 crore of shares, as per provisional NSE data.

All 15 sector gauges -- compiled by the National Stock Exchange -- were trading in the red today. Sub-indexes Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty FMCG, Nifty Consumer Durables, Nifty Metal and Nifty Oil & Gas were underperforming the NSE platform by falling as much as 0.37 per cent, 0.62 per cent, 0.66 per cent, 0.81 per cent, 1.43 per cent and 0.93 per cent, respectively.

On the stock-specific front, Adani Enterprises was the top loser in the Nifty pack as the stock cracked 4.32 per cent to trade at Rs 2,293.60. Adani Ports, BPCL, Hindalco and Tech Mahindra fell up to 2.80 per cent.

In contrast, Asian Paints, Dr Reddy's, Bajaj Auto, NTPC and ICICI Bank were among the top gainers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 918 shares were declining while 1,783 were advancing on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, Reliance Industries, Infosys, SBI, HDFC twins (HDFC and HDFC Bank), ITC, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv and TCS were among the top laggards.

Also, HCC, Saregama, Alok Industries, M&M Finance and Adani Power fell up to 4.69 per cent. On the other hand, Tube Investments and PB Fintech jumped up to 4.02 per cent.

Sensex had dropped 284 points, or 0.46 per cent, to settle at 63,239 yesterday, while Nifty had shed 86 points, or 0.45 per cent, to end the day at 18,771.25.

Nifty outlook

 

"Nifty has been taking some time to achieve the psychological all-time high level to be conquered and has been hovering in and around the 18,650 and 18,850 zone for the past few sessions. As said earlier, the near-term support lies at 18,670 zone whereas there is tough resistance witnessed near 18,870 levels as of now which needs a decisive breakout to make way for fresh upside targets in the coming days. The support for the day is seen at 18,650 levels while the resistance is seen at 18,900 levels," said Vaishali Parekh, Vice-President - Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher.

 

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