Domestic equity market open weak amid selling pressure in bank stocks

MUMBAI: Indian equity markets on Wednesday opened with losses. Though the global markets opened stronger, selling pressure in banking and IT stocks kept indices close to the flatline in the early trade. Key index BSE Sensex dropped 146 points to 60,831.89 level while Nifty fell 43 points to 18,082.40 level at 9.20 am on Wednesday.

Some of the most active stock that went up in morning trade were Nazara Tech, Car Trade, Sharda Corp, CG Power and Elecon Engineering on BSE. Pidilite Industries, Sindhu Trade, United Spirits, Solar Industries and Motiwal Oswal were some of the laggards in morning trade. "Mirroring robust global peers, the domestic market extended previous gains driven by auto stocks.

However, due to selling pressure in banking shares, the indices anchored close to the flatline. Auto stocks were in focus prior to the earnings results of the sector major. Hopes of a soft landing of the US economy along with the anticipation of a lesser rate hike boosted global bourses," Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

BSE Auto index was trading in the green on Wednesday morning trade while almost every index on BSE was trading in the red on Wednesday morning.

In the Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei rose 39 points, Hong Kong's Hang Seng went up 393 points and China's Shanghai rose 24 points on Wednesday morning. In European markets, FTSE dropped 27 points, CAC was trading in the green while Deutsche was down 9 points. In US markets, Dow Jones surged 104 points, Nasdaq declined 30 points, S&P dipped 2 points while Refinitiv United States was in the negative territory.

On Tuesday, BSE Sensex rose 37.08 points and settled at 60,978.75 while the Nifty 50 index ended flat at 18,118.30. On Tuesday, European markets tumbled with investors digesting the latest flash purchasing managers' index data from the euro zone in January.

Shares of Maruti Suzuki India on Tuesday gained 3.27 per cent. Its standalone net profit zoomed 132.5 per cent to Rs 2,351.3 crore on 25.52 per cent jump in net sales to Rs 27,849.2 crore in Q3 FY23 over Q3 FY22.

On Tuesday, shares of Colgate-Palmolive (India) fell 2.06 per cent. The company reported a 3.6 per cent decrease in net profit to Rs 243.24 crore in the third quarter from Rs 252.33 crore posted in Q3FY22. Shares of Tata Communications tumbled 4.26 per cent. The company's consolidated net profit declined marginally to Rs 393.88 crore in Q3 FY23 from Rs 395.21 crore posted in Q3 FY22.