Domestic markets continue losses, tracking weak global cues triggered by SVB fallout

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 16 (ANI): Key indices of the domestic equity markets opened in the red, tracking weak global cues. Heavyweights like Reliance, Adani Ports, Wipro made losses during the early trading hours and dragged the markets.

The issue triggered by the bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank still loomed large as financial institutions and countries scrambled and go on damage control to insulate from the debt issue, threatening the startup scene. BSE Sensex lost 114 points to 57,441.87 while NSE Nifty dropped 38 points to 16,931.90 during the early trading hours of Thursday. Network18, TV18 Broadcast, ICICI Prudential and Hikal were some of the gainers on BSE while some of the laggards were Motherson, ICIL, Olectra and Jubiliant Pharma.

In Asian markets, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 274 points, Japan’s Nikkei lost 255 points, China’s Shanghai dropped 21 points as domestic stocks opened in India. In US markets, Dow Jones dropped 280 points, S and P lost 606 points, indices Nasdaq and NYSE were trading in the positive territory and S&P 500 lost 27 points.In European markets, BEL-20, CAC 40 and Deutsche Borse were trading in the positive territory, FTSE 100 dropped 292 points while IBEX 35 was also trading in the positive territory.

On Wednesday, BSE Sensex declined 344.29 points to 57,555.90. The Nifty 50 index fell 71.15 points to 16,972.15. In five consecutive sessions, the Sensex slipped 4.63 per cent while the Nifty fell 4.41 per cent. Yesterday, HDFC Bank was down 1.54 per cent, HDFC dropped 1.18 per cent and ICICI Bank dipped 0.66 per cent.

Patanjali Foods shares touched a lower circuit on Thursday. It fell 5 per cent to Rs 912.90 after the company failed to increase its public shareholding from 19.18 per cent to 25 per cent, following which NSE and BSE have frozen the shareholding of promoters and promoter group. According to a company statement, The promoters of Patanjali Foods on Thursday said they do not foresee any adverse or negative impact on the financial position of the company owing to the instant freeze of promoters’ shareholding by the stock exchanges.

Speaking on capital goods and power sector stocks remaining insulated, Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart, said, “The Indian economy is in a much healthier stage compared to most of the global economies. As a result, domestic economy-facing sectors, particularly capital goods and power, are performing well. We have seen massive capex in the last two budgets, and private capex is also gaining pace, which is resulting in strong order books for capital goods companies.”

He said, “We believe this decade or the next 25 years will belong to the Indian economy, where the capital goods sector will hold the leadership position. The power sector is correlated with the manufacturing or capital goods sector, whereas expectations of strong demand in this summer season are lifting sentiment.”