Blood Bath on Dalal Street: Indices open negative; Sensex down 693 points, Nifty below 17400

Today the benchmark indices opened on a negative note with Nifty below 17400.

The Sensex was down 693.06 points or 1.16% at 59113.22 and the Nifty was down 202.95 points or 1.15% at 17386.65.

About 560 shares advanced, 1,319 shares declined, and 104 were shares unchanged.

Tata Motors, Britannia Industries, Bharti Airtel, and Bajaj Auto were among the major gainers on Nifty, while the top losers were Adani Enterprises, Hindalco Industries, Adani Ports, Bajaj Finserv, and Bajaj Finance.

Analysts says

Analysts said that heavy selling in financials, banking, IT and capital goods shares triggered by weak Asian markets and overnight losses in the US market dragged down the benchmark indices.

"The sell-off in US markets was triggered by a crash of 60 per cent in SVB Financials - a bank that mainly funds start ups. This impacted sentiments and banking stocks took a beating on concerns that rising interest rates might trigger loan repayment defaults," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said.

Shares that fell big

HDFC fell the most by 2.53 per cent among Sensex shares. IndusInd Bank, HDFC Bank, L&T, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Axis Bank, Infosys, TCS and Ultratech Cement were among major losers.

Tata Motors bucked the trend gaining 0.75 per cent. Bharti Airtel and Maruti also advanced.

In Asia, markets in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul declined following losses in US shares. Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped by 2.45 per cent, South Korea's Kospi by 1.21 per cent, Shanghai by 1.15 per cent, Japan's Nikkei by 1.36 per cent.

In the US, the S&P 500 tumbled 1.8 per cent, The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.7 per cent and the Nasdaq composite fell 2.1 per cent as investors remain anxious about the prospect of more aggressive action by the Federal Reserve to fight inflation with higher interest rates.

With inputs from Agencies.

Published on: Friday, March 10, 2023, 09:20 AM IST