Lagatar24 Desk
Mumbai, Oct.29: After mounting a quick recovery in opening deals, Indian equity benchmarks fell dramatically in afternoon trading as banks and financial services stocks, as well as index heavyweight Reliance Industries, came under selling pressure. After recovering from a low of 17,613.10 and attaining an intraday high of 17,915.85, the Sensex lost nearly 500 points and the Nifty plunged below 17,750. The Sensex was dragged down by Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Bank, and Axis Bank.
Sensex was at 59,173.31 and Nifty was at 17,642.40 at 2.16 p.m. today.
Consistent selling by foreign institutional investors, along with Morgan Stanley’s downgrade of Indian shares, has lowered investor confidence in Indian markets.
On Thursday, foreign institutional investors sold shares worth 3,818.51 crore and bought shares for 836.6 crore.
According to NSDL data, FIIs have sold shares worth more than 11,000 crore this month.
Meanwhile, six of the National Stock Exchange’s 15 sector indices were trading lower, headed by the Nifty Private Bank index, which fell 1.3 percent. The Nifty Bank, IT, Financial Services, and Oil & Gas indices all fell.
On the other hand, real estate, pharmaceuticals, public sector banks, and metals companies all saw increased purchasing activity.
After the Ministry of Railways retracted the IRCTC convenience fee sharing decision, shares of the Indian Railways’ catering, tourist, and online ticketing arm – Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) soared. The Ministry of Railways has decided to reverse its decision on the IRCTC convenience fee, according to the Secretary of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management. Within 19 hours of the stock price plummeting, the decision was reversed.
RBL Bank fell as much as 15% to an intraday low of 172.10 a day after reporting September quarter earnings. In the second quarter of this fiscal year, RBL Bank’s net profit fell dramatically due to higher provisioning. The bank posted a net profit of 31 crore, down from 144 crore in the same period previous year, a 78 percent decrease.
The top Nifty loser was Kotak Mahindra Bank, which slumped 3.4 percent to 2,027. Reliance Industries, NTPC, IndusInd Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Tech Mahindra, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma, HDFC, SBI Life, Eicher Motors, and Wipro all saw their stock prices drop between 1.2 and 2.6 percent.
UltraTech Cement, Shree Cement, Cipla, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Steel, Adani Ports, Tata Motors, and Divi’s Labs, on the other hand, saw their stock prices rise.
On the BSE, the overall market breadth was negative, with 1,761 shares decreasing and 1,400 gaining.
