Stock Market Today: Nifty and Sensex track auto stocks sell-off
- India’s Nifty and Sensex keep falling after opening with modest gains on Wednesday.
- Nifty and Sensex lose over half a percent, undermined by steep losses in the auto sector stocks.
- Wednesday’s US GDP revision eyed ahead of Thursday’s US PCE inflation, India’s Q3 GDP data.
The Sensex 30 and Nifty 50, India’s key benchmark indices, keep pushing lower after opening with slight gains on Wednesday.
Global markets turned cautious, in the face of a renewed downside in Chinese stocks and nervousness in the run-up to a fresh batch of US economic data.
Indian traders remain on edge ahead of India’s third-quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data and the expiry of monthly derivatives contracts due later this week.
Also, of note remains the top-tier US economic news, including the second estimate of the GDP report on Wednesday.
At the time of writing, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty 50 and the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex 30 lose about 0.80% on the day to trade at 22,021.80 and 72,577.86 respectively.
Stock market news
- The top gainers on Nifty include Infosys, HDFC Life Insurance, SBI Life Insurance and Hindustan Unilever. Meanwhile, the main laggards are Apollo Hospital, Eicher Motors, Bajaj Auto, Powergrid and Maruti.
- Shares of Vodafone Idea tumbled roughly 14% on Wednesday after the company’s board decided to raise around Rs 45,000 crore through a combination of equity and debt for rolling out the 4G network.
- Patanjali Foods shares tanked 5% after the Supreme Court issued a contempt notice to Patanji Ayurved’s Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balakrishna for publishing advertisements of products in violation of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954.
- The NSE’s Index Maintenance Sub-Committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, after market hours to review the constituents of various indices of the Nifty.
- Reliance Capital set to be delisted from the bourses following its acquisition by the Hinduja Group entity.
- Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth INR1,509.16 crore on Tuesday, according to exchange data.
- The third term of the Narendra Modi government will see transformative reforms in sectors such as digital infrastructure, space, artificial intelligence, specialized warehousing, agriculture and tourism, India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday.
- The US stock markets closed mixed on Tuesday, as markets weighed a 6.1% slump in the US Durable Goods Orders data and a dip in the CB Consumer Confidence index.
- Wednesday’s US GDP revision and personal spending data will be closely eyed before the key US PCE inflation data and India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data due on Thursday.
- Markets are currently pricing in just about a 20% chance that the US Federal Reserve (Fed) could begin easing rates in May, much lower than an over 90% chance a month ago, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. For the June meeting, the probability for a rate cut now stands at about 60%, down from 70% seen a few days ago.
Sensex FAQs
The Sensex is a name for one of India’s most closely monitored stock indexes. The term was coined in the 1980s by analyst Deepak Mohoni by mashing the words sensitive and index together. The index plots a weighted average of the share price of 30 of the most established stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Each corporation’s weighting is based on its “free-float capitalization”, or the value of all its shares readily available for trading.
Given it is a composite, the value of the Sensex is first and foremost dependent on the performance of its constituent companies as revealed in their quarterly and annual results. Government policies are another factor. In 2016 the government decided to phase out high value currency notes, for example, and certain companies saw their share price fall as a result. When the government decided to cut corporation tax in 2019, meanwhile, the Sensex gained a boost. Other factors include the level of interest rates set by the Reserve Bank of India, since that dictates the cost of borrowing, climate change, pandemics and natural disasters
The Sensex started life on April 1 1979 at a base level of 100. It reached its highest recorded level so far, at 73,328, on Monday, January 15, 2024 (this is being written in Feb 2024). The Index closed above the 10,000 mark for the first time on February 7, 2006. On March 13, 2014 the Sensex closed higher than Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index to become the major Asian stock index with the highest value. The index’s biggest gain in a single day occurred on April 7, 2020, when it rose 2,476 points; its deepest single-day loss occurred on January 21, 2008, when it plunged 1,408 points due the US subprime crisis.
Major companies within the Sensex include Reliance Industries Ltd, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ITC Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Tata Steel, HCL Technologies, Infosys, State Bank of India, Sun Pharma, Tata Consultancy Services and Tech Mahindra.