Sensex falls 300 points, Nifty below 17,500 as losses in financials, Adani stocks weigh

Defying positive cues from global peers, Indian equity indices opened in the red a day after Union Budget, dragged by index heavyweight Reliance, banking and financial stocks. A selloff in Adani group stocks was another overhang on investor sentiment.

The BSE Sensex was trading 330 points or 0.55% lower at 59,377 while Nifty50 was trading at 17,462, down 154 points or 0.87% at around 9.23 am.

In the Sensex pack, SBI and ICICI Bank were the top laggards, down 2-3%. Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, UltraTech Cement, HDFC, HDFC Bank, L&T and NTPC also opened with losses.

On the other hand, HCL Tech, Infosys, ITC, TCS, Titan, and Tech Mahindra opened with gains.
Sectorally, Nifty PSU Bank fell 2.9% and Nifty Financial Services declined 1.75%. Auto, media, metal, pharma, realty, healthcare and oil & gas stocks also opened lower. Whereas, in the broader market, Nifty Smallcap50 dropped 0.42% and Nifty Midcap50 plunged 0.58%.

Experts Views
"Union Budget 2023 turned out to be excellent from the market perspective. FIIs will have to invest in India if they are to benefit from the India Growth Story. Meanwhile, the situation in the mother market of the US is slowly improving. The expected reduction in rate hike to 25bp and the slightly less hawkish commentary are positive for global equity markets," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said.

Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities said, "US Fed raised its policy interest rate by 25 basis points, as widely expected while signaling only a few more might be needed in its inflation fight. This may be good news for global equities but Indian markets may take time to react positively. Nifty continues to face resistance at around 17760 levels, while support levels have now fallen to 17353."

Global Markets
Wall Street rose to its highest level since the summer following the latest hike to interest rates by the Federal Reserve, which said it’s finally seeing improvements in inflation.

The S&P 500 rallied back from an early 1% loss Wednesday to rise 1%. The Nasdaq composite rose 2% to 11,816.32.

Asian shares mostly advanced on Thursday, extending a rally on Wall Street. The Shanghai Composite Index gained less than 0.1% to 3,287.29 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo added 0.2% to 27,391.85. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 0.3% to 22,128.78.

Currency Watch
The Indian rupee fell by 6 paise to 81.86 against the US dollar in early trade. The dollar index, which tracks the movement of the greenback against a basket of six major world currencies, declined 0.28% to 100.93 level.

Crude Price
Oil prices climbed on Thursday underpinned by a weaker dollar, which fell on signs of slowing inflation in the United States.

Brent crude futures gained 0.70%, to $83.42 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 0.86%, to $77.07.

(With inputs from agencies)