Freaky Friday on D-St! Sensex plunges nearly 1,000 pts from day’s peak; Nifty ends below 15,800

The BSE benchmark Sensex fell nearly 1,000 points from the day’s high, ending 136.69 points or 0.26 per cent lower at 52,793.62. Its broader peer, the Nifty 50, settled 40 points lower, below the 15,800 mark.

This week’s fall marks the longest weekly losing streak for Sensex and Nifty in over two years since the run ended in April 2020.

(TaMo)was the top gainer of today’s session rising 8 per cent after March quarter results. , M&M, , , , and Sun Pharma, also finished strong with gains of over 2 per cent each.

On the flip side,

, , , and were among the day’s top losers.

Poor earnings from State Bank of India (SBI) offset a jump in TaMo shares. SBI ended 4.8 per cent lower after touching a two-month low due to a weaker-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter.

“High domestic inflation data failed to spook investors since the recent selloff has already absorbed the ongoing uncertainties in the market,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at .

Domestic markets witnessed a rebound as buyers took the recent correction into their advantage following the trend of the global market. However, the weakness seen in the banking sector triggered a late selloff, he said, adding that the US Fed cautioned against an aggressive policy stance in order to bring inflation under the Fed’s comfort zone of 2%.

In a season of headwinds for markets, the Nifty50 has declined over 10 per cent in the last 5 weeks of fall. According to BSE data, The stocks have erased Rs 10 lakh crore from investors’ portfolios this week.

“The US Fed cautioned against an aggressive policy stance to bring inflation under the Fed’s comfort zone of 2%,” Nair added.

The benchmarks came under fag-end selling amid unabated selling by foreign institutional investors and concerns over inflation pressure.

The sentiment was also dented in afternoon trading after SBI Research experts said they expect the Reserve Bank of India may raise policy rates by 75 bps cumulatively in the next 2 reviews in June and August.

The market always knew that inflation was a problem, but didn’t factor in tightening by the central bank this quickly and aggressively.

Broader markets, however, bucked the trend, with the Nifty Midcap 100 and the Nifty Smallcap 100 rising around one percent each. Nifty Midcap has declined over 10 per cent in the last five weeks of fall and closed at its lowest level since May 2021, while smallcap index lost almost 20 per cent during the same time and ended at its lowest level in nearly a year.

All the sectoral indices tumbled this week, with metal and PSU Banks falling the most. Nifty Metal has declined over 10 per cent to post the worst week since March 15, 2020.

Markets in Asia settled higher with Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai gaining significantly. Bourses in Europe were quoting higher in the afternoon session. US stock futures were higher early Friday morning as investors geared up for the S&P 500 to potentially slide into the official bear market territory.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 1.09 per cent to $108.6 per barrel.