Markets extend opening losses in early deals; Nifty slips below 17,750 mark

Indian equity benchmarks made gap-down opening on Wednesday following the broadly negative cues from global markets overnight coupled with weakness in Asian counterparts, as traders remain concerned about the outlook for U.S. interest rates amid a sharp increase by U.S. treasury yields. Soon, domestic indies extend their losses and are trading with over 0.60% cut in early deals. Sensex and Nifty slipped below their crucial 60,300 and 17,750 marks, respectively. All the sectoral indies were trading in red with Utilities, Oil & Gas and Power leading the losers. Traders were concerned as the State Bank of India (SBI) projected a GDP growth of 4.6% for the December quarter, citing that as many as 30 high frequency indicators are not as robust as they were in the previous quarters. Meanwhile, the Indian rupee turned flat against the US dollar in early deals as investors remained cautious ahead of release of US Fed moentary policy minutes as well as geopolitical developments. In stock specific developments, Adani Transmission fell amid reports that it will announce debt refinancing plans soon. However, IRB Infrastructure Developers jumped on bagging a Rs 2,132 crore build-operate-transfer project in Gujarat.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 60271.00, down by 401.72 points or 0.66% after trading in a range of 60265.29 and 60462.90. There were 2 stocks advancing against 28 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index fell 0.69%, while Small cap index was down by 0.46%.

The top losing indices on the BSE were Utilities down by 1.60%, Oil & Gas down by 1.53%, Power down by 1.46%, Energy down by 1.32%, PSU down by 1.14%, while there was no gainer in sectoral indices on the BSE.

The only top gainers on the Sensex were Sun Pharma up by 0.37% and Maruti Suzuki up by 0.33%. On the flip side, Ultratech Cement down by 1.67%, Power Grid down by 1.31%, Bajaj Finserv down by 1.26%, Indusind Bank down by 1.25% and Bajaj Finance down by 1.18% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, expressing optimism over India’s exports, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the country’s goods and services exports are growing at a healthy rate and are expected to be around $1 trillion each by 2030. The country's merchandise and services exports touched an all-time high of $422 billion and $254 billion, respectively, in 2021-22.

He said ‘My own estimates seem to suggest that we will converge (goods and services exports) by 2030...seven years from now at about $1 trillion of goods and $1 trillion of services (exports). That is the trajectory I can see which will mean merchandise doing 8- 9.5 per cent and services doing anywhere between 16-17 per cent’.

The services sector, driven by the IT industry, has created a potential not only in terms of jobs, giving value to talent, but also providing India with an opportunity to showcase to the world its strengths. He also said that every country wants to invest in India because of its start-up ecosystem. He highlighted that ‘The world wants to engage with our start-ups because of their integrity and transparency’.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17716.75, down by 109.95 points or 0.62% after trading in a range of 17711.65 and 17772.50. There were 8 stocks advancing against 42 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bajaj Auto up by 1.04%, Coal India up by 0.40%, Divi's Lab up by 0.40%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.35% and Sun Pharma up by 0.30%. On the flip side, Adani Enterprises down by 4.47%, BPCL down by 1.90%, Grasim Industries down by 1.84%, Ultratech Cement down by 1.57% and JSW Steel down by 1.51% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in red; Nikkei 225 slipped 358.9 points or 1.31% to 27,114.20, Taiwan Weighted lost 135.38 points or 0.87% to 15,427.62, Jakarta Composite plunged 80.62 points or 1.17% to 6,792.79, KOSPI dropped 31.27 points or 1.27% to 2,427.69, Shanghai Composite weakened 8.39 points or 0.25% to 3,298.13 and Straits Times fell 5.82 points or 0.18% to 3,301.04, while Hang Seng was up by 5.33 points or 0.03% to 20,534.82.