Indian equity benchmark -- Nifty -- ended Thursday’s trading session near day’s low point, impacted by heavy selling in Oil & Gas, Metal and Pharma sectors’ stocks. After making a cautious start, soon index began southward journey, amid foreign fund outflows. Foreign Institutional Investors have net sold Rs 6,669.10 crore worth of Indian shares on May 08. Some cautiousness crept in amid a private report that India's consumer price inflation is likely to have eased to 4.80% in April, just shy of March's rate as food inflation remains sticky. As per the report, with parts of the country experiencing a heatwave, food prices continue to pose an additional risk to India's inflation trajectory.
In afternoon session, index extended its losses and slipped near day’s low point, as sentiments remained downbeat with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its latest data report showing that India’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) commitments declined 18.29% to $2943.98 million in April 2024 as compared to $3602.95 million in April 2023. In March 2024, it stood at $3,963.94 million. Traders overlooked Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran’s statement that there was a high possibility of GDP growth touching 8 per cent in FY24 on the back of robust growth registered during the three quarters of the financial year ended March 2024. Finally, Nifty ended with over one and half a percent cut.
Most of the sectorial indices ended in red except Auto stocks. The top gainers from the F&O segment were TVS Motor Company, Hero Motocorp and Tata Motors. On the other hand, the top losers Piramal Enterprises, Manappuram Finance and Aarti Industries. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 23400 - 23600 calls and 21400 - 21600 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.
