Sensex, Nifty suffer 4th straight loss in line with weak global cues

Domestic equity gauges Sensex and Nifty logged their fourth straight session of fall on February 21 as participants remained cautious over lingering geopolitical tensions in eastern Europe.

Tracking deep losses on Asian bourses, the BSE Sensex dived around 700 points in the opening session but staged a recovery to briefly trade in the positive zone as market jitters were calmed by hopes of talks between the U.S. and Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

The Sensex finally ended 149.38 points or 0.26% lower to settle at 57,683.59, while the broader NSE Nifty slipped 69.65 points or 0.40% to 17,206.65.

Of the Sensex constituents, 21 shares ended in the red, with Sun Pharma, TCS and ITC emerging as top laggards.
In contrast, IT majors Wipro and Infosys were major gainers.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses ended lower but pared deep losses suffered in their opening session on reports of a likely meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Biden has agreed “in principle” to a meeting with Mr. Putin as long as that country holds off on what U.S. officials believe is an imminent assault on Ukraine.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration has been clear that “we are committed to pursuing diplomacy until the moment an invasion begins”. Crude oil benchmark Brent was trading lower at $91.43 per barrel.

On the Forex market front, the rupee closed 11 paise higher at 74.55 against the U.S. dollar on Feb. 21.

Continuing their selling spree, foreign institutional investors offloaded shares worth ₹2,529.96 crore in the Indian capital markets on Friday, exchange data showed.