Equity benchmark indices decline in early trade

MUMBAI: Equity benchmark indices witnessed a see-saw movement in the early trade on Wednesday amid high volatility, as investors rushed to book profit in high-value stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex fell 316.75 points or 0.45 per cent to 70,053.58 points in the opening trade but soon regained the lost ground to trade with a gain of 60.70 points or 0.09 per cent at 70,431.25 points.

The broader Nifty, which initially declined 51.50 points or 0.24 per cent to 21,187.65 points, recovered quickly to trade at 21,265.95 points, 27.15 points higher or 0.13 per cent at 0951 hours.

Among the Sensex firms, IndusInd Bank, SBI, Tata Steel and Infosys were trading with a gain of up to 1.84 per cent.

HCL Tech, JSW Steel and PowerGrid were other major gainers.

On the other hand, Axis Bank, Asian Paints, TCS and M&M lost up to 3.79 per cent in the morning deals.

Maruti, Bharti Airtel and Bajaj Finance were among the laggards.

As many as 21 stocks of the 30-share benchmark were trading in green, while 32 constituents of the broader Nifty showed gains.

According to V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services, "the valuations in the broader market had become excessive and unsustainable as pointed out many times recently. The trigger for the correction came mainly from the sustained selling by FIIs who have sold equity worth Rs 27,830 crore during the last five days."

In the US markets, the Dow closed 0.25 per cent lower, while the S&P 500 settled 0.29 per cent higher and tech-heavy Nasdaq closed Tuesday's session 0.43 per cent higher.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 was trading with a loss of 1.00 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.84 per cent. China's Shanghai Composite was down by 0.14 per cent.

European markets closed largely lower on Tuesday with Germany's DAX and CAC 40 of France losing 0.34 per cent each. London's FTSE 100 also fell 0.03 per cent.

Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, were trading lower by 0.18 per cent to USD 79.41 per barrel on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Sensex fell 1,053.10 points or 1.47 per cent to settle at 70,370.55. Nifty also declined 330.15 points or 1.53 per cent to close at 21,241.65.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital markets on Tuesday, as they offloaded shares worth Rs 3,115.39 crore, according to exchange data.