Markets trade bearish; Sensex near 52,700, Nifty 50 below 15,900; HDFC bank hits 52-week low; Hindalco, SBI Life, Hero MotoCorp weigh

8 Mar 2022 , 09:41 AM

Bears hovered on Indian markets during Tuesday’s opening bell weighed down by banking, financial, metal and auto stocks. Investors react to geopolitical tensions where Ukraine talks made little progress against the war. Also, weak asian market cues further added to woes. This week markets sentiment will be also influenced by Russian-Ukraine war, crude oil prices as ban on oil imports from Russia triggered investor fears over inflation and slowing economic growth.

At around 9:45 AM, Sensex was trading at 52,732.97 lower by 109.78 points or 0.21%. The index has touched an intraday high and low of 52, 820.86 and 52,410.39 respectively.

Nifty 50 traded at 15,821.80 below 41.35 points or 0.26%. The index has touched an intraday high and low of 15,836.95 and 15,747.40 respectively.

On the sectoral front, auto, metal, banking indices logged profit booking while power, IT and pharma sectors logged some buying sentiments from investors. BSE midcap and smallcap indices were higher 1% each.

Top bulls on Nifty50 were – ONGC (+2%), Power Grid (+1.8%), NTPC, HCL Tech and Tech Mahindra.

Top bears on Nifty50 were – Hindalco, SBI Life, HDFC Bank, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Steel, Asian Paints, Eicher Motors. HDFC Bank stock hits 52-week low at Rs1,292 per share on Sensex.

On the global front, Asian markets traded broadly lower with the Japanese ‘Nikkei’ trading lower by 100 points after a huge sell-off on Monday as weak US cues see caution in early trade. The rest of Asia was a ‘sea of red’ yesterday with a rise in crude hitting 10-year highs causing a massive bout of sell-off in oil-sensitive sectors/stocks. Chinese stocks also ended near 4 month lows as ETF flows were sellers across the board in Asian stocks.