Offloading in heavy weights snaps 8-day rally

Benchmark indices ended lower on Wednesday, halting their eight days of rally, ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision and mixed global market trends. Robust equity buying by foreign institutional investors failed to stop the downward movement as fall in index heavyweights Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Larsen & Toubro weakened the overall sentiment.

The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 161.41 points or 0.26 per cent to settle at 61,193.30. During the day, it tumbled 330.27 points or 0.53 per cent to 61,024.44. The broader NSE Nifty fell 57.80 points or 0.32 per cent to end at 18,089.85.

“Renewed concerns over the US regional banking turmoil, uncertainty regarding the Fed’s policy outcome, and the need to increase the US treasury debt borrowing limit triggered a bearish attack on Wall Street. Despite this, the robust growth of India’s services and manufacturing sectors in April and the strong inflow of foreign funds helped minimise the losses in the domestic market,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

“Markets lost steam after eight sessions of gains as select profit-taking in banking, metal and IT stocks ahead of the US Fed’s rate setting meeting fuelled caution amongst the investors,” said Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities Ltd.