After opening in the red on Wednesday, Indian equity indices extended their decline ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes which could throw some light on the US central bank’s interest-rate hiking path in 2023.
BSE Sensex was trading 634.52 points or 1.04% lower at 60,659.68 around 12.10 pm. Nifty50 was trading at 18,051, down 181 points or 0.99% at the same time.
“Relentless run of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve, and China’s Covid crisis will keep investors guarded. Investors will be keeping an eye on the Federal Reserve’s December meeting minutes to trickle in on Thursday. Technically, Nifty’s biggest make-or-break intraday support is now placed at 17,971 mark,” Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research) at Mehta Equities said.
In the Sensex pack, barring Ultratech Cement,
, Asian Paints and Maruti Suzuki, all stocks trade in the red. , , and were the top losers, down 2% each.
Sectorally, all indices too slipped into the red. Nifty Realty and Nifty Metal, down over 2% each, were the worst losers. At the same time, volatility on Street remained high as India VIX spiked over 6% to 15.53.
“Nifty has shown a gradual upmove over the past two days with minimal intra-day range. This denotes a lack of conviction on either side by the participants though mild positive bias prevails for the time being. A move above 18,265 could result in a faster upmove. On the other hand, a breach of 18,080 could lead to a fresh down move,” Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at
Securities said.
Globally, US stocks edged lower on Tuesday amid worries about high inflation and a possible recession. Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.03%, S&P 500 plunged 0.40% and Nasdaq Composite declined 0.76%.
Stocks in Asia were mostly higher in a sign of growing risk appetite on Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.46%, while South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.36% and China’s Shanghai Composite surged 0.32%.
Brent crude March futures declined 0.07% to $82.04 a barrel and US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures decreased 0.21% to $76.77 a barrel.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)
