Benchmark indices face first weekly decline, steepest in 20 weeks
Sensex and Nifty faced their first weekly decline after four weeks of gains on Friday. The Sensex dropped to a low of 72,485 while the NSE Nifty 50 dipped to a low of 21,932.
The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC, Maruti Suzuki India, and Titan Company, while the major losers were Hindustan Unilever, HCL Technologies, and UltraTech Cement.
The BSE Sensex crossed the 58,000-mark for the first time in its history on Friday. It has hit a record high of 58,115.69 points. A rise in the global markets lifted the Indian indices, analysts said. Healthy buying was witnessed in auto stocks.
The Indian market indices, taking mixed global cues, opened at fresh record levels on Friday, the BSE Sensex was up 217.58 points, or up 0.38 percent at 58,070.12 for the first time, and the broader market Nifty was up 61.80 points or 0.36 percent at 17,296. About 1315 shares have advanced, 348 shares declined, and 98 shares are unchanged.
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Around 10.10 a.m., Sensex was trading at 58,050.25, higher by 197.71 points or 0.34 percent from its previous close of 57,852.54. It opened at 57,983.45 and has touched an intra-day low of 57,937.95 points.
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The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange was trading at 17,292.75, higher by 58.60 points or 0.34 percent from its previous close.
The top gainers on the Sensex were ONGC, Maruti Suzuki India, and Titan Company, while the major losers were Hindustan Unilever, HCL Technologies, and UltraTech Cement.
“We know from experience that markets can surprise – both on the upside and downside. Greed and fear can cause overreaction on the upside and downside. From the valuation perspective, now we are in the over-valued zone; but excesses can sustain in a ferocious bull market like the present one. So the only option before long-term investors is to remain invested and occasionally book some profits and move money to safe fixed-income assets. It is possible that by the end of this financial year Nifty may be around the present level or lower than that,” Dr. V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services said.
At 7.10 hours IST, the Nifty futures on the Singapore Stock Exchange were trading at 17,259, up 0.50 points, or 0.00 percent signaling a flat start for Indian markets. The US Benchmark indices, S&P 500 index, and Nasdaq recorded gains.
Taking mixed cues from the US and Asian markets, the Indian market opened with gains. After double-digit GDP, rapid vaccination, and US Fed Powell’s speech indicating tapering will happen slowly, the sentiment on Dalal Street was upbeat. But Asian markets this week behaved in a cautious manner seeking clarity on US employment data that is about to come by the end of this week.
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