Sensex, Nifty open lower in early trade; bank stocks drag ahead of Q3 results

Benchmark stock market indices fell in early trade on Thursday, dragged by a decline in banking and heavyweight financial stocks as volatility continued to plague the market.

The S&P BSE Sensex tumbled 245.54 points to 77,902.95, while the NSE Nifty50 was down by 76.35 points to 23,612.60 as of 9:30 AM.

Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services said that so far in January FIIs have sold equity for Rs 10419 crores.

“With the dollar index at 109 and the 10-year bond yield at 4.67% FIIs are likely to continue with their selling strategy putting pressure on the market in the near-term,” he added.

Hindalco Industries led the gainers on Nifty50 with a rise of 1.56%, followed by Kotak Mahindra Bank which advanced 1.25%. Bajaj Auto showed positive momentum with a 0.96% increase, while Infosys and Mahindra & Mahindra registered modest gains of 0.35% and 0.32% respectively.

On the declining side, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise saw the steepest fall of 1.82%, while Trent Limited dropped 1.63%. Larsen & Toubro (L&T) declined by 1.37%, and UltraTech Cement fell 1.09%. Grasim Industries rounded out the losers with a decline of 1.07%. The mixed performance reflects the day’s cautious trading sentiment in the Indian equity market.

“With the Q3 results season starting from today there will be market reaction to results. The results of TCS will give an indication of what is in store for the IT sector. The strength of the U.S. economy and the depreciation of rupee will be tailwinds for the IT sector. Premium segments like hotels, jewellery, automobiles catering to the premium market and airlines are likely to report good numbers. Expectations from President Trump’s policy decisions and the Indian union Budget proposals will keep the market volatile in the coming days,” said Vijayakumar.

Coming to sectoral indices in today’s early market action, Nifty Realty took the biggest hit, down 1.31%.

Nifty Consumer Durables also faced significant pressure, declining 0.88%, while Nifty Pharma dropped 0.58%. The financial sector showed weakness, with Nifty Financial Services falling 0.41% and Nifty Financial Services Ex-Bank declining 0.57%.

Nifty Metal slipped 0.45%, while Nifty Auto declined 0.38%. The healthcare segments weren’t spared either, with Nifty Healthcare Index down 0.66% and Nifty Midsmall Healthcare falling 0.65%. Nifty Oil & Gas retreated by 0.52%, while Nifty Midsmall Services and Nifty IT showed relatively smaller declines of 0.36% and 0.18% respectively. Nifty Bank and Nifty Midsmall IT & Telecom both fell by 0.23%.

Only three indices managed to stay in the green – Nifty Media stood out as the top gainer, advancing 1.16%, while Nifty FMCG and Nifty Private Bank both edged up slightly by 0.06%.