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29 Mar 2024, Edition - 3181, Friday

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Business

Sensex, Nifty plunge in early trade amid prospects BJP facing tough fight in MP, Chhattisgarh; may lose Rajasthan to Congress

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The prospects of Bharatiya Janata Party facing a tough fight from the Congress in the recently held polls in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh weighed on the market sentiment with the Sensex and Nifty opening lower in trade today. Exit polls also predicted a win for the Congress party in Rajasthan and ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi in Telangana will retain power.

Of all the five states that went to Assembly elections, with polls in Rajasthan and Telangana having concluded on Friday, Madhya Pradesh is the state where both the Congress and the BJP are in a neck-and-neck contest. Poll pundits are in a dilemma of giving a clear majority to one particular party, though most of them say the Congress has a marginal edge over the BJP.

That spooked market in early trade.

Indian markets also followed their Asian peers which were trading lower amid non resoultion of US-China trade dispute and tensions arising between the two nations over the arrest of senior executive of Chinese electronics giant Huawei in Canada.

While the Sensex fell 486 points to 35,186 level, the Nifty was down 148 points or 1.39% to 10,545 in early trade.

Tracking stock market action, the rupee too fell below the 71 per dollar mark in early trade amid strengthening American currency and weak opening in the domestic equity market.

Forex traders said the strength of the US dollar against other overseas currencies and foreign fund outflows weighed on the local unit.

The rupee opened lower by 54 paise to 71.34 compared to its previous close of 70.80. Top Sensex losers were Adani Ports (3.63%) , RIL (3.02% ) and Kotak Bank (2.36%).

All 30 Sensex stocks were trading in the red.

TCS (0.16%) , Wipro (0.20%) and Infosys (0.01%) were the top three stocks to suffer minimum losses on the Sensex.

Market breadth was negative with 217 stocks rising compared to 1122 falling on the BSE. 50 stocks were unchanged.

BSE midcap and small cap indices fell 237 points and 218 points to 14717 and 14104 levels, respectively.

Among sectoral indices, the BSE bankex index emerged as the worst performer by falling 1.39% per cent or 413 points, followed by BSE auto shedding 1.59% per cent or 318 points, capital goods (1.47%) and consumer durables 1.17%.

All 19 BSE sectoral indices except the BSE IT index were trading in the red.

On a net basis, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 817.4 crore on Friday, and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers to the tune of Rs 242.56 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.

On Friday, the Sensex closed 361 points higher to 35,673 level and Nifty gained 92.55 points to 10,693.

Global markets

Asian markets were broadly lower on Monday after China protested the arrest of a senior executive of Chinese electronics giant Huawei, who is suspected of trying to evade US trade curbs on Iran.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slid 2.3 percent in early trading to 21,191.23, after revised data showed that its economy shrank by 2.5 percent in the third quarter, more than expected. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.2 percent to 2,051.82. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 1.6 percent to 25,660.76 and the Shanghai Composite was 0.8 percent lower at 2,585.94. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 2 percent at 5,569.90. Shares fell in Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Stocks tumbled on Friday on weaker-than-expected jobs growth and worries that the US-China trade dispute will not be resolved within a 90-day timeframe. The S&P 500 index slipped 2.3 percent to 2,633.08 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave up 2.2 percent to 24,388.95. The Nasdaq composite tumbled 3 percent to 6,969.25. The Russell 2000 index of small-company stocks dropped 2 percent to 1,448.09.

Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 45 cents to $62.12.

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