Indian equity benchmarks finished just below the flatline as heavyweights such as Reliance, TCS and Infosys helped the market recover most of the day's losses in a choppy session on Tuesday. Investors awaited the outcome of a key meeting of the RBI's rate-setting panel due later this week for domestic cues.
Headline indices swung between gains and losses before closing with minor cuts. The
Sensex gyrated within a range of more than 750 points, between 56,950.5 and 57,704.6, during the session. The
Nifty50 moved broadly within the 16,900-17,200 band before managing to settle seven points above the psychologically-important 17,000 mark.
"In search of a safer dollar and elevated bond yields, foreign investors are withdrawing from Indian equities, causing the decline in the domestic market. In contrast to the recent trend, banking and auto stocks are exhibiting a negative bias, and IT and pharma showcasing resilience," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
The
rupee inched higher against the US dollar, having scaled a series of record lows in the past few days.
Oil benchmark Brent futures came down below $85 a barrel — about 40 percent below the highest level of the year so far. India meets the lion's share of its demand for oil through imports.
"Crude price are closing down, despite expectations that the OPEC+ (grouping) will take more action to cut production in the coming meeting, due to a weakening global economy," Nair added.
Overall market breadth was in favour of the bulls, as 1,868 stocks rose and 1,539 fell for the day on BSE.
Harsha Engineers shares closed 3.2 percent lower at Rs 518.3 apiece on BSE — a premium of 42.6 percent over the upper end of the company's IPO issue price range, a day after making a strong debut in the secondary market.
Global markets
European markets began the day in the green, shrugging off mixed moves across Asia, amid gains in auto and travel stocks following a three-day-long sell-off fuelled by fears of a global recession. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.7 percent at the last count,
S&P 500 futures were up 1.2 percent, suggesting a gap-up start ahead on Wall Street.
