MUMBAI: The domestic equity market on Thursday opened with losses, tracking weak global cues. Though the repo rate hike decision taken by the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met the majority of market participants’ expectations, investors are still in the cautious mode on Thursday.
Key indices of the domestic market Sensex lost 120.88 points to 60,542.91 while Nifty declined 52 points to 17,817.65. Gainers on Sensex were Bajaj Finance, Larsen and Toubro, Infosys, TCS and Power Grid Corporation of India while Tata Motors, UltraTech Cement, Bharti Airtel and Maruti were some of the laggards.
In tje Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei was down 126 points, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 50 points, China’s Shanghai surged 20 points while S and P went down to 38 points. In the American markets, Dow Jones declined 207 points, Nasdaq lost 203 points, NYSE Composite declined 86 points while S&P went down 210 points. In the European markets, CAC 40 and Deutsche Borse were trading in the green, FTSE 100 was trading up 20 points while Ibex 35 surged 54 points.
Adani Group firms continue to make losses on Thursday. The shares of Adani Enterprises dropped 15 per cent to Rs 1,839.65 apiece on Thursday morning. Adani Wilmar gained Rs 4.15, or 0.64 per cent, to Rs 421. Adani Ports was down 6.40 per cent to Rs 560.90 while Adani Green declined 4.80 per cent to Rs 770.05. Adani Transmission shares also lost 5 per cent to Rs 1,249.10 apiece at 9.36 am on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Sensex closed at 60,663.79 points, up 377.75 points, or 0.63 per cent, whereas Nifty closed at 17,871.70 points, up 150.20 points, or 0.85 per cent. The RBI’s monetary policy meeting on Wednesday decided to raise repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.50 per cent. Repo rate is the rate at which the RBI lends money to all commercial banks.
Since May last year, the RBI has increased the short-term lending rate by 250 basis points to contain inflation. India’s retail inflation was above RBI’s 6 per cent target for three consecutive quarters and had managed to fall back to the RBI’s comfort zone in November 2022. (ANI)