New Delhi: The key Indian equity benchmarks continued their sixth straight losses in the opening trade on Tuesday. Sensex slumped 900 points in early trade because of subdued global stocks across counters which triggers panic selling among investors worldwide.
After paring initial losses, at 10 am, the 30-share BSE Sensex was slightly up 59 points to 57,550, while the broader Nifty was 17,172, up 23 points.
Initially, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were also in red and were down up to 2.8 per cent in the broader market.
According to PTI, besides, frantic foreign capital outflows also weighed on domestic equities, even as concerns over the US Federal Reserve’s possible aggressive monetary policy tightening deepened, investors said.
Axis Bank was up 4 per cent on the bourses on the back of its strong earnings Q3. The private sector lender’s net profit soared 224 per cent YoY to Rs 3,614 crore for the third quarter ended December 2021 on improvement in net interest margin and other income. Net interest income rose by 17 per cent YoY to Rs 8,653 crores.
The other gainers were Bharti Airtel and PowerGrid.
On the flip side, Asian Paints was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding 4.38 per cent, followed by Wipro, Tech Mahindra, L&T, Reliance Industries, and HDFC Bank.
In the previous session, the 30-share index ended 1,545.67 points or 2.62 per cent lower at 57,491.51. Likewise, the NSE Nifty slumped 468.05 points or 2.66 per cent to settle at 17,149.10.
Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo were trading with losses in mid-session deals amid rising geopolitical uncertainty over the Russia-Ukraine tussle.
Stock exchanges in the US ended on a positive note in the overnight session.
Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude rose 0.85 per cent to $87.00 per barrel.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital market, as they sold shares worth Rs 3,751.58 crore on Monday, according to stock exchange data.