Mumbai, Mar 15 (PTI) Market benchmarks halted their five-day rally to close with deep cuts on Tuesday, in line with a sell-off in global markets as participants dialled back risk exposure ahead of a key policy meeting of the US Federal Reserve amid continuing uncertainty over the Ukraine crisis.
A depreciating rupee and foreign capital outflows also weighed on sentiment, traders said.
After opening with gains of over 200 points, the 30-share Sensex turned highly volatile and tumbled in afternoon trade, before finally finishing 709.17 points or 1.26 per cent lower at 55,776.85.
Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty dived 208.30 points or 1.23 per cent to 16,663.
Tata Steel was the top laggard in the Sensex pack, sliding 4.89 per cent, followed by Kotak Mahindra Bank, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Reliance Industries, HCL Tech and PowerGrid.
Mahindra & Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki topped the gainers’ list, climbing as much as 2.31 per cent, after these firms featured in the list of 75 companies whose applications were cleared under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for the automobile and auto components sector.
Asian Paints, Titan, Nestle India and Bharti Airtel were among the other winners.
“The world equity market lost its momentum as new financial and trade sanctions were imposed on Russia along with the suspension of gas imports. It is a setback for the market sentiment, which was improving in anticipation of a truce in war. The Indian market was outperforming due to ease in commodity prices.
“World markets are also lower ahead of the US Fed meeting,” according to Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
The Federal Reserve will meet on Wednesday amid expectations that the US central bank will hike rates for the first time since 2018 to help cool runaway inflation.
“Indian equity markets end a five-day winning streak on the back of weak global cues and rising US bond yields ahead of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting outcome on Wednesday. The most important event apart from the Russia-Ukraine war is the FOMC meeting outcome,” said Parth Nyati, Founder, Tradingo.
In the broader market, the BSE midcap gauge dipped 0.68 per cent and the smallcap index declined 0.88 per cent.
Barring auto, all BSE sectoral indices settled lower, with metal tanking the most by 4.34 per cent, followed by oil & gas, energy and IT.
A total of 2,045 stocks declined, while 1,342 advanced and 101 remained unchanged.
Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Hong Kong and Shanghai closed sharply lower amid concerns over fresh coronavirus lockdowns in China. Tokyo was marginally in the green.
Exchanges in Europe were largely trading in the negative zone in the afternoon trade. Stock exchanges in the US settled on a mixed note in the overnight trade.
Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude tumbled 6.11 per cent to USD 100.4 a barrel.
The rupee surrendered its early gains to close 8 paise down at 76.62 against the US dollar.
Foreign institutional investors continued their selling spree in Indian markets as they offloaded shares worth Rs 176.52 crore on a net basis on Monday, according to exchange data.
Retail inflation hit an eight-month high of 6.07 per cent in February, remaining above the RBI’s comfort level for the second month in a row, while wholesale price-based inflation soared to 13.11 per cent on account of hardening of crude oil and non-food item prices, government data showed on Monday. PTI SUM SUM ABM ABM
