Closing Bell: Sensex Falls 575 Points, Nifty Ends Below 17,650 On Weak Global Cues

Adani Ports, Titan, HDFC, PowerGrid, Wipro, HDFC Bank, ONGC, PowerGrid, RIL, Bharti Airtel, TCS, Coal India, Tata Steel, and L&T fell between 1.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent

New Delhi: Ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) outcome on Friday, the key domestic equity benchmarks, Sensex and Nifty, on Thursday declined for the third straight session amid weak global cues.

The 30-share BSE Sensex sank 575 points to close at 59,035, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 168 points lower to settle at 17,640.

Adani Ports, Titan, HDFC, PowerGrid, Wipro, HDFC Bank, ONGC, PowerGrid, RIL, Bharti Airtel, TCS, Coal India, Tata Steel, and L&T fell between 1.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent.

On the flipside, Axis Bank, Divis Labs, Dr Reddy’s Labs, and HUL added over a per cent.

Midcap and smallcap shares finished on a weak note as Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 1.02 per cent and smallcap shed 0.31 per cent.

12 out of the 15 sector gauges, compiled by NSE, ended in the red. Nifty Consumer Durables and Nifty IT underperformed the index by falling as much as 1.70 per cent and 1.25 per cent, respectively.

The Nifty Oil and Gas, and Consumer Durable indices ended over 2 per cent and 1.7 per cent lower, respectively. On the upside, the Nifty Pharma index added 0.4 per cent.

Shares of Titan Company declined 3.3 per cent to Rs 2,457 apiece on the BSE on Thursday after the company reported sluggish growth in its jewellery business in March quarter of FY22 (Q4FY22).

Zee Entertainment shares slipped 3.4 per cent to a low of Rs 281.10 in the intra-day trades on the NSE on Thursday amid heavy volume. The shares, however, trimmed losses to end little over 1.5 per cent down

On Wednesday, the BSE tanked 566 points to 59,610 points, while the Nifty declined 149 points to 17,807 points.

In Asia, markets in Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, and Tokyo settled lower. Stocks in the US also ended lower in the overnight session.

"Recent market weakness is partly due to the increasingly hawkish commentary from the US Fed," V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, told PTI.

International oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 0.93 per cent to $102 per barrel.

Investors await cues from the RBI policy meeting outcome, which will be announced on April 8.

Foreign institutional investors offloaded shares worth Rs 2,279.97 crore on Wednesday, as per exchange data.

"Domestic equities closed lower, following the negative global cues. Investors continue to focus on Fed's possible aggressive monetary policy stance whilst tracking the developments of the Russia-Ukraine war," according to Mitul Shah, Head of Research at Reliance Securities.