Mumbai: The Sensex and Nifty fell in early trade on Friday amid continuous foreign fund outflows and weak trends in blue-chip stocks Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank. Market watchers said the Indian market is likely to trade sideways till clarity emerges on corporate earnings, pick up in consumption and foreign fund flows. Meanwhile, the US Fed has cut rates for two straight meetings as the inflation print has been comfortable.
However, India, on the other hand, is facing sticky food inflation but also lower growth possibilities, they said. The RBI will be meeting next month to unveil their monetary policy meeting. The BSE benchmark Sensex fell by 424.42 points to 79,117.37 in early trade. The NSE Nifty declined 132.7 points to 24,066.65. From the 30-share Sensex pack, Tata Motors, Reliance Industries, Asian Paints, Maruti, NTPC and ICICI Bank were the biggest laggards.
Infosys, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, Titan, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Bank were among the gainers. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 4,888.77 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data. "Two divergent trends are evident in the market now: one, strength in the global market led by the US and two, weakness in the Indian market. The weakness in the Indian market can be attributed largely to the relentless selling by FIIs which continues this month, too," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said.
In Asian markets, Seoul and Tokyo were trading in the positive territory while Shanghai and Hong Kong quoted lower. Wall Street ended mostly higher on Thursday. "The Federal Reserve has cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.50 per cent-4.75 per cent, following earlier rate reductions to address inflation. Meanwhile, Nifty shows limited movement amid persistent FII selling," Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research) at Mehta Equities Ltd, said.
Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.71 per cent to USD 75.09 a barrel. The BSE benchmark tanked 836.34 points or 1.04 per cent to settle at 79,541.79 on Thursday. The Nifty dropped 284.70 points or 1.16 per cent to finish at 24,199.35.
