Sensex Falls Over 200 Points, Nifty Below 17,300; Rupee Falls Below 82/Dollar Mark For First Time

The Indian equity benchmarks edged lower on Friday dragged down by weakness in banking, financial services and metal shares. Meanwhile, Indian rupee dropped over 40 paise to hit record low of 82.36 against the US dollar and that also added to selling pressure in equity markets, analysts said. The Sensex fell as much as 237 points and Nifty 50 index fell below its important psychological level of 17,300.

As of 9:23 am, the Sensex was down 115 points at 58,106 and Nifty 50 index fell 22 points to 17,310.

Asian stocks declined on Friday, extending a global equity slide to a third day, as investors fretted over recession risks amid signs of further aggressive central bank policy tightening.

The dollar and Treasury yields remained elevated after multiple Federal Reserve officials continued to talk up additional rate hikes ahead of a crucial U.S. jobs report later in the day, while rising crude oil prices compounded concerns about prolonged inflation.

Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.7 per cent, pulling back from a two-week high reached on Thursday.

Overnight, a choppy day of trading ended with stocks broadly lower on Wall Street Thursday, though indexes have managed to hold onto most of their sizeable gains from a big rally at the start of the week.

The S&P 500 fell 1 per cent after having been up 0.4 per cent in the early going. The benchmark index is up 4.4 per cent for the week following its best two-day rally since the spring of 2020.

The selling was widespread, with roughly 80 per cent of the stocks in the S&P 500 ending in the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.1 per cent, while the Nasdaq composite lost 0.7 per cent. The Russell 2000 index of smaller company stocks closed 0.6 per cent lower.

Back home, rupee dropped as much as 30 paise to hit an all-time low of 82.36 against the dollar as the greenback continue to rise against the major currencies of the world.

Selling pressure was broad-based as all the 15 sector gauges, barring the index of consumer durable shares, were trading lower led by the Nifty PSU Bank index's over 1 per cent fall. Nifty Metal, FMCG, Private Bank, Realty, Bank and Financial Services indices also fell between 0.7-1 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also facing selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 0.48 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index declined 0.3 per cent.

Bharat Petroleum was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 1.5 per cent to Rs 307. Hindalco, IndusInd Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, Coal India, JSW Steel, State Babk of India, Tata Motors and Eicher Motors were also among the losers.

On the flipside, Titan was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose over 5 per cent to Rs 2,726 after the company said that it witnessed healthy double-digit growth across most businesses with overall sales growing 18% YoY. Retail network continued the pace of expansion adding 105 stores (net) for the quarter. The outlook for festive season (from Navratri in end Sep'22) continues to be optimistic and is visible in positive consumer sentiment across categories.

Hero MotoCorp, UPL, Cipla, Bajaj Auto, Apollo Hospitals, Maruti Suzuki, HCL Technologies, SBI Life and Reliance Industries were also among the gainers.