Benchmark indices, which seemed to be recovering from morning losses, lost ground yet again in the fag-end of the session as investors dumped stocks across the board. Sentiment remained tepid throughout the day after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said overnight that a half-percentage point rate hike is “on the table” for next month. At close, the Sensex was down 714.53 points or 1.23 per cent at 57,197.15, and the Nifty was down 220.60 points or 1.27 per cent at 17,172. About 1447 shares have advanced, 1882 shares declined, and 115 shares are unchanged.
While Bank, Financial Services, Pharma, and Metal indices were the worst hit (down around 2 per cent each), Auto, FMCG, and IT indices were the least hit sectors, down 0.6 per cent each.
In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index and Smallcap index slipped 0.7 per cent and 0.4 per cent, respectively.
Meanwhile, in the money market, 10-year government bond yield hardened by 0.46 per cent to hit 7.17 per cent-mark in India. Globally, the 5-year US Treasury yield topped 3 per cent-mark in early deals.
Dr VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said: “This excessively volatile market without any clear direction is being influenced on a daily basis by two factors- one, external and two, internal. The external factor is the erratic movement in the mother market US where the S&P 500 and Nasdaq go up by around 2 per cent one day and go down by around 2 per cent the next day.The internal factor influencing the market is the see-saw tussle between FIIs and DIIs. Both these external and internal factors are erratic now and that’s why the market is volatile without any direction.”
“Yesterday’s comment by the Fed chief that a 50 bp rate hike is possible in May’ and that ‘ control of inflation has become absolutely essential’ has pushed the 10-year bond yield above 2.9% and consequently impacted equity markets. But this impact, too, is likely to be temporary since the market has already discounted this known hawkishness of the Fed. What investors should do in this time of high uncertainty is to buy high-quality stocks on steep market corrections and wait with patience,” he added.
Global Cues
Wall Street reversed course and posted losses on Thursday while oil gained as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested the US central bank would move aggressively to curb inflation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 1.05 per cent, while the S&P 500 lost 1.48 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.07 per cent.
Tokyo stocks opened lower on Friday, extending losses on Wall Street following hawkish comments from the Federal Reserve about its monetary tightening plans. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 1.49 per cent, or 410.48 points, at 27,142.58 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was down 1.16 per cent, or 22.36 points, at 1,905.64.
Hong Kong stocks plummeted at the open on Friday, extending a week of losses after US Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell suggested an interest rate hike was imminent. The Hang Seng Index fell 2.03 per cent, or 420.61 points, to 20,261.61. The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.69 per cent, or 21.40 points, to 3,058.40, while the Shenzhen Composite Index on China’s second exchange dropped 0.65 percent, or 12.58 points, to 1,911.23.
Read all the Latest Business News here
Comments
0 comment