Sensex Falls Over 200 Points, Nifty Trades Below 16,450; Consumer Goods, Auto Stocks Drag

Indian equity benchmarks on Thursday traded lower in opening deals amid weak cues from the global markets. Asian share markets fell — tracking overnight weakness in U.S. stocks — as investors worried over high inflation, fanning recession fears.

Trends on the Nifty Futures on Singapore Exchange (SGX Nifty) indicated a gap-down start for the domestic indices.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 209 points or 0.38 per cent to 55,172, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 74 points or 0.45 per cent up to trade at 16,449.

Mid- and small-cap shares were slightly positive as Nifty Midcap 100 and small-cap edged 0.08 per cent higher, respectively.

Nine out of the 15 sector gauges — compiled by the National Stock Exchange — were trading in the red. Sub-indexes Nifty FMCG and Nifty Auto were underperforming the NSE platform by falling as much as 1.17 per cent and 0.76 per cent, respectively.

On the stock-specific front, Hero MotoCorp was the top Nifty loser as the stock cracked 3.27 per cent to ₹ 2,667.35. ONGC, Apollo Hospitals, Hindustan Unilever and Tata Consumer Products were also among the laggards.

However, the overall market breadth was strong as 1,443 shares were advancing while 939 were declining on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, PowerGrid, HDFC, Bharti Airtel, NTPC and HDFC Bank were among the top losers.

In contrast, TCS, Reliance Industries, Wipro, Infosys, HCL Tech, Dr Reddy’s, Tata Steel, Asian Paints and Sun Pharma were trading in the green.

Sensex had slipped 185 points or 0.33 per cent to close at 55,381 on Wednesday, while Nifty had moved 62 points or 0.37 per cent down to settle at 16,523.