Sensex, Nifty Firmly Down In Negative Territory After Weak Start
(RTTNews) – The Indian stock market is down firmly in negative territory Wednesday morning with investors largely making cautious moves as they look for directional clues.
Information technology and bank stocks are among the prominent losers.
Investors are reacting to earnings announcements from a few leading companies, and data on vehicles sales from automobile manufacturers.
The Reserve Bank of India is scheduled to announce its monetary policy on Friday (June 4). The central bank is widely expected to hold interest rate unchanged. The repo rate is currently at 4 percent and the reverse repo rate stands at 3.35 percent.
The benchmark BSE Sensex, which tumbled to 51,555.81, is currently down 352.90 points or 0.68 percent at 51,581.98. The broader Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange is down 78.10 points or 0.5 percent at 15,496.75.
After five successive days of gains, the Sensex ended marginally down on Tuesday, and the Nifty too closed weak, snapping a seven-day winning streak, weighed down by data showing a significant slowdown in India’s factory activity last month.
ITC is down by about 1.7 percent at Rs 211.50 after reporting a slight drop in earnings. The company reported standalone profit of Rs 3,748.4 crore for the quarter ended March 2021, compared to Rs 3,797 crore reported in the year-ago quarter.
Information technology majors Tech Mahindra (down 2.3 percent), Infosys (down 1.3 percent) and HCL Technologies (down 1.1 percent) are notably lower. Tata Consultancy Services is down nearly 1 percent.
Axis Bank, Kotak Bank, HDFC, Larsen & Toubro, Titan Industries, ICICI Bank, Asian Paints and HDFC Bank are down 0.7 to 1.25 percent.
Among the gainers, Power Grid Corporation is rising 1.3 percent. NTPC, Ultratech Cement, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Maruti Suzuki, IndusInd Bank and Reliance Industries are up 0.3 to 0.6 percent.
Hero MotoCorp shares are down marginally. The two-wheeler maker announced on Tuesday that it sold 1,83,044 units last month, down 51% from 3,72,285 units dispatched in April this year.