Markets fall in early trade on unabated foreign fund outflows, Middle East conflict

Equity benchmark indices declined in early trade on Friday, extending their previous day’s sharp slump, amid unabated foreign fund outflows and spiralling conflict in the Middle East.

Falling for the fifth day running, the BSE Sensex dropped 354.67 points to 82,142.43. The NSE Nifty declined 114.1 points to 25,136.

From the 30 Sensex firms, Bajaj Finance, Asian Paints, NTPC, UltraTech Cement, State Bank of India and Bajaj Finserv were the major laggards. HCL Technologies, IndusInd Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies were among the gainers.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 15,243.27 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo and Hong Kong were trading in the positive territory. Markets in mainland China are closed due to a holiday. The US markets ended lower on Thursday.

“The last three days have witnessed huge FII selling of Rs 30,614 crore in the cash market. FIIs are moving money from expensive India to cheap Hong Kong on expectations that the monetary and fiscal stimulus being implemented by the Chinese authorities will stimulate the Chinese economy and improve earnings of Chinese companies.

“It remains to be seen how this Chinese recovery hopes play out,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude dipped 0.06 per cent to USD 77.57 a barrel. Falling for the fourth straight session on Thursday, the BSE benchmark tumbled 1,769.19 points or 2.10 per cent to settle at 82,497.10. During the day, it plummeted 1,832.27 points or 2.17 per cent to 82,434.02.

The Nifty slumped 546.80 points or 2.12 per cent to 25,250.10.

“In yesterday’s session, FIIs were net sellers, offloading Rs 15,243 crore, as Nifty faced a sharp sell-off due to fragile market sentiment, sensitive to news from the Middle East,” Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said.