Sensex, Nifty Open on Choppy Notes; IT Stocks Tumble

Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty opened on a choppy note on Wednesday, led by weakness in index-heavyweight IT stocks amid tepid cues from global markets.

Despite opening with mild gains, the 30-share Sensex turned volatile to trade 41.84 points or 0.07 per cent lower at 58,237.64. Similarly, Nifty slipped 15.35 points or 0.09 per cent to 17,346.75 in initial deals.

Infosys was the top loser in the Sensex pack, shedding over 1 per cent, followed by PowerGrid, HCL Tech, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Maruti and Bajaj Auto.

On the other hand, Bharti Airtel, IndusInd Bank, NTPC, Axis Bank, ITC, ICICI Bank, SBI and Bajaj Finance were among the gainers.

In the previous session, the 30-share index settled 17.43 points or 0.03 per cent lower at 58,279.48, the broader NSE Nifty fell 15.70 points or 0.09 per cent to 17,362.10.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market as they offloaded shares worth Rs 145.45 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional exchange data.

"By all matrices of valuations markets are richly valued, even overvalued, and ripe for a correction. But unmindful of valuation concerns, the market, driven by liquidity and retail investor exuberance, is setting record after records," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

He further noted that India is one of the best performing markets in the world. Consequently, valuations have become excessive. "Corrections are imminent but we don’t know when that will happen," he said.

Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry has declared that the number of active Covid -19 cases in the country has declined to 3,91,256. A single-day rise of 37,875 new infections and 369 fatalities has pushed India's tally of cases to 3,30,96,718, and death toll to 4,41,411.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Shanghai and Tokyo were trading with gains in mid-session deals, while Seoul and Hong Kong were in the red.

 US equities ended mixed in the overnight session.