The stock market ended lower during a highly volatile session on Friday, with the Nifty falling below 23,350. This was led by selling across the sectors, barring IT stocks.
At close, the Sensex was down 241.30 points, or 0.31%, at 77,378.91, and the Nifty was down 95 points, or 0.40%, at 23,431.50.
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The benchmark indices opened higher but erased all the gains in the opening hour despite weak Asian markets.
The Sensex opened at 77,682.59 against its previous close of 77,620.21 and dropped over 500 points, or 0.70%, to the intraday low of 77,099.55. While the Nifty 50 opened at 23,551.90 against its previous close of 23,526.50 and declined over 180 points, or 0.80%, to 23,344.35.
The BSE Midcap index has fallen by 4.13%, while the BSE Smallcap index has lost 4.6%. Investors have lost nearly ₹12 lakh crore in these three days as the overall market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms has dropped to below ₹430 lakh crore from nearly ₹442 lakh crore.
Most of the sectoral indices suffered significant losses. However, the Nifty IT index jumped 3.44% due to a healthy Q3 result of heavyweight TCS. Sectors on the losing side were Nifty Media (3.59%), Realty (2.77%), PSU Bank (2.72%), Healthcare (2.21%), Pharma (2.13%), Consumer Durables (1.80%), Private Bank (1.74%), and Metal (1.62%).
On the Nifty, the leading gainers were Tata Consultancy Services (5.62%), Tech Mahindra (3.82%), HCL Technologies (3.12%), Wipro (2.82%), and Infosys (2.59%). On the losing side were Shriram Finance (5.33%), IndusInd Bank (4.41%), Adani Enterprises (4.18%), NTPC (3.78%), and Bharat Electronics (3.64%).
The Bank Nifty concluded at 49,503.5, with an intraday high of 49,483.15 and a low of 48,631.2. Shares of IndusInd Bank dropped 4.29% after Goldman Sachs downgraded the stock to ‘neutral’ from its earlier ‘buy’ call.
Among some of the key individual performers, Adani Wilmar shares slipped to their 10% lower circuit as promoter Adani Commodities launched a two-day offer-for-sale (OFS) for non-retail investors.
IREDA shares declined 5.83% amid a decline in the asset quality sequentially in the fiscal third quarter. Tata Elxsi shares tumbled 6.77% after the company reported disappointing results for the October-December quarter (Q3FY25).
Among the other key developments, the FPIs (foreign portfolio investors) till January 9 have sold off Indian equities worth over ₹19,000 crore.
The recent strong US macro data and expectations of a rise in inflation have raised concerns that the US Fed may not go for even two rate cuts this year.
