Equity benchmark indices declined further and hit fresh intraday low in afternoon trade. Weak global cues sapped investors sentiment. The Nifty was trading a tad above 17,400 mark. Pharma and healthcare stocks bucked broader selling pressure. Interest-rate sensitive banks, autos and realty shares were under pressure.
At 13:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 736.73 points or 1.25% to 58,382.99. The Nifty 50 index declined 222.15 points or 1.26% to 17,407.65.
HDFC Bank (down 2.74%), Axis Bank (down 2.74%), HDFC (down 2.80%), ICICI Bank (down 1.77%) and Reliance Industries (down 1.48%) were major drags.
Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 1.15%), ITC (up 0.87%), Infosys (up 0.80%), Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (up 0.29%) were top Sensex gainers.
Tata Steel rose 0.87% after the steel major's board approved the amalgamation of seven of its subsidiaries - Tata Steel Long Products, Tata Metaliks, The Tinplate Company of India, TRF, Indian Steel & Wire Products, Tata Steel Mining and S&T Mining Company into and with their parent company Tata Steel. The decision was taken at a board meeting of the company held on Thursday (22 September).
In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index lost 1.42% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index fell 1.14%
The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 1,047 shares rose, and 2,325 shares fell. A total of 138 shares were unchanged.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s six-member Monetary Policy Committee is scheduled to meet next week during 28-30 September 2022. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das will announce the MPC decision on 30 September 2022, the last date of the meeting. The RBI is widely expected to maintain the balancing act between growth and inflation.
In the past three policy reviews, the RBI's rate-setting panel has raised 140 basis points in total since May this year. Currently, the repo rate, the interest rate at which the RBI lends to the commercial bank, stands at 5.40%.
Global Markets:
The Dow Jones index was down 126 points, indicating a negative opening in the US stocks today.
Shares in Europe and Asia declined on Friday as investors feared that rising interest rates across the globe may destabilize economic growth. Japan markets were closed for a holiday Friday.
US stocks ended lower on Thursday, falling for a third straight session as investors reacted to the Federal Reserve's latest aggressive move to rein in inflation by selling growth stocks, including technology companies.
The US current account deficit narrowed sharply in the second quarter amid a surge in goods exports, data showed on Thursday. The Commerce Department said that the current account deficit, which measures the flow of goods, services and investments into and out of the country, contracted 11.1% to $251.1 billion last quarter. The current account gap represented 4% of gross domestic product, down from 4.6% in the January-March quarter.
The Bank of England raised its key interest rate to 2.25% from 1.75% on Thursday and said it would continue to respond forcefully, as necessary to inflation, despite the economy entering recession. The BoE's Monetary Policy Committee voted 5-4 to raise rates to 2.25%.
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