India’s key stock indices plunged a sharp 1.5% on Friday to hit a 21-day low, capping the worst week for the broad market benchmarks in two and a half years, on a day that was marked by a deeper selloff in mid-cap and small cap stocks as well as sharper declines for IT, auto and bank indices.
With a cumulative drop of close to 5% over five successive days of closing in the red, the Sensex fell 1,176.46 points or 1.49% to close at 78,041.59 points on Friday, while the NSE Nifty tumbled. The NSE Nifty fell 1.52% or 364.20 points, to end up at 23,587.50 points. Trading sentiment remained weak in the backdrop of India’s record trade deficit numbers for November and the U.S. Federal Reserve’s hawkish guidance for 2025 that have spooked emerging markets.
Despite the debacle on Dalal Street, the Indian Rupee (INR) made a surprise recovery, appreciating 10 paise to the Dollar, to close at 85.03.
“On a weekly basis, the Nifty registered a massive fall of 4.77%, the highest weekly fall in percentage terms since June 17, 2022,” noted Nandish Shah, senior derivative and technical research analyst at HDFC Securities.
“The number of shares declining on Friday outnumbered the advancing shares with the advance:decline ratio at 0.36 on the BSE, the lowest since November 13,” Mr. Shah said, adding that all the sectoral Indices ended in the red with the Nifty Reality, Nifty PSU Banks, and Nifty IT taking the hardest hit.
Shrikant Chouhan, head of equity research at Kotak Securities said global equity markets witnessed various degrees of sell-off this week with Brazil markets down 10%, Japan down 5% and the S&P-500 down 4%, in the aftermath of the US Fed’s caution on the pace of future interest rate cuts.
Some of the large stocks to take a beating on Friday. included Tech Mahindra (down 3.97%), Mahindra and Mahindra (3.60%), IndusInd Bank (3.53%), Axis Bank (3.28%), Tata Motors (2.73%) and State Bank (2.44%).
The BSE MidCap and SmallCap which slumped 2.43% and 2.11%, respectively. Among sectoral indices, the Bankex fell 1.66%, auto was down 2.25% and IT fell 2.51%.
Published – December 21, 2024 12:37 am IST
