Indian markets continued to decline during the intra-day trade for the fourth consecutive session amid weakness in the European equity indices. According to a report in Business Standard, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs)’s shareholding in Indian companies dropped to its lowest level in almost three years at the end of the December quarter.
Advertisement
A total of eight stocks registered a fresh 52-week high in trades today, while 369 stocks touched a new 52-week low on the NSE.
Initially, both bellwethers opened on a weak note, following a steep fall in Asian indices and Wednesday’s decline in the United States markets. After making a positive start markets soon languished into red, as investors opted to stay away from risky assets ahead of Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data scheduled to be released later in the day.
In addition, a volatile rupee kept investors on the knife’s edge.
Indian Rupee opened weaker by 9 paise at 68.38/$ in early trade on Friday as against the previous close of 68.30/$.
The weakness in the rupee indicated massive flight of foreign funds from the equity markets.
One of the reasons behind today’s crash were comments made by Janet Yellen, the US Federal Reserve chair. It had gained 393.65 points in the last two sessions. The bourse’s wider 50-share Nifty shed 239.35 points, or 3.32 per cent, at 6,976.35 points.
However, on profit-booking at every rise, it slipped into the negative zone to touch a low of 22,600.39 points before settling 34.29 points or 0.15 per cent higher at 22,986.12.
The US dollar slid to its lowest against the safe-haven yen since October 2014, and was on track for its worst week against the Japanese currency since 2008 on the fears over the health of the global economy.
The S&P BSE Sensex, which opened at 23,758.46 points, provisionally closed at 22,951.83 points (3.30 p.m.) – down 807.07 points or 3.40 percent from the previous day’s close at 23,758.90 points.
The S&P BSE market breadth favoured the bulls – with 1,499 advances and 987 declines. Huge volatility was seen during the day. The company’s consolidated revenue stood at Rs. 1,075.77 crore, down 22.16% yoy and 12.66% qoq. “I would say that investors should continue with their SIP investments and not be anxious too much as the fall in markets is driven by global factors”, he said.
Vaibhav Agarwal, vice president and research head at Angel Broking, elaborated that shares traded flat – oscillating between positive and negative territory led by lack of directional cues from global markets. On sectoral front it was across the board selling pressure.
Advertisement
The benchmark indexes Sensex and the Nifty plunged more than 3 percent in a bloody carnage that engulfed global markets on Thursday.
