Indian equity benchmark -- Nifty ended lower on Wednesday amid escalating geopolitical tensions. Index made a gap-down start following weak cues from other Asian peers as escalating US-Iran tensions and surged crude oil prices near $98 per barrel downbeat investors' sentiments. Soon, index intensified its losses as Crisil’s report stated that rising petrol and diesel prices are poised to add fresh inflationary pressures to India's economy, with higher transport and manufacturing costs expected to feed through to consumer prices in the coming months. Further, persistent foreign fund outflow remained the key hurdle for market sentiments. As per exchange data, foreign institutional investors offloaded equities worth Rs 8,362.92 crore on Tuesday. However, in the afternoon session, the market witnessed a sharp recovery but remained in the red and finally ended with a loss of 0.33%.
Traders were seen piling up positions in PSU Bank, Private Bank and Pharma stocks, while selling was witnessed in IT, Realty and Cement. The top gainers from the F&O segment were Vodafone Idea, GE Vernova T&D India and NHPC. On the other hand, the top losers were Tata Consultancy Services, Persistent Systems and LTM. In the index option segment, maximum OI continues to be seen in the 24900 - 25100 calls and 23900 - 24100 puts indicating this is the trading range expectation.
