Indian shares fell on Wednesday after strong economic data from the U.S. kept investors worried that central banks would have to keep raising interest rates, while markets waited for minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy meet.
The S&P BSE Sensex slipped below the 60,000-mark today, falling nearly 1,000 points and hitting an intra-day low of 59,681.55. The Nifty50, meanwhile, gave up the 17,550-mark intra-day.
The indices settled at 59,745 (down 928 points or 1.53 per cent), and at 17,554 (down 272 points or 1.53 per cent), respectively. This was the indices’ biggest one-day fall in a month.
The RBI and the US Fed will release minutes of their February policy committee meetings on Wednesday. While India’s retail inflation accelerated to 6.5 per cent in January 2023, consumer price index (CPI) in the US rose 0.5 per cent in January to 6.4 per cent. With this spike in inflation data, it gives more ammunition to both central banks to stick to their policy tightening path.
The weakness percolated to the broader markets, too, with the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices closing 1 per cent lower each. India VIX jumped 12 per cent.
All the sectoral indices ended in the negative zone with the Nifty Metal index slipping over 2.5 per cent, the Nifty PSU Bank index 2 per cent, and the Nifty Realty index 1.7 per cent.
Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Grasim, JSW Steel, Bajaj twins, M&M, RIL, L&T, Wipro, SBI Life, Titan Company, Ultratech Cement, NTPC, ICICI Bank, Tata Steel, KOtak Bank, Tata Motors, and HDFC Bank fell in the range of 1.5 per cent to 11 per cent.
ITC, and Bajaj Auto were the only large-cap gainers, up 0.5 per cent, and 0.26 per cent, respectively.
In the broader market, Adani Power, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, ACC, IRCTC, IDBI, Capacite Infra, SVP Global, Likhitha Infra, and Uflec lunged between 4 per cent and 11 per cent.
Global Cues
That apart, US markets posted their worst performance in 2023 on Tuesday, as key indices Dow Jones, the S&P 500, and NASDAQ Composite closed over 2 per cent lower.
The dampened mood spread across markets in Asia-Pacific too, this morning, as Nikkei 225, Kospi, Kosdaq, Topix, and the S&P 200 indices fell up to 1 per cent.
Meanwhile, in the commodities basket, prices of Brent Crude and WTI Crude declined up to 0.2 per cent to $82 per barrel, and $76 per barrel, respectively.
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