After trading within a 500-point range for the entire week, the Sensex ended in the red on Friday. The index has fallen 2.6% in April. The benchmark indices tumbled in the last hour of the trade on Friday, with Reliance Industries and Axis Bank primarily contributing to the fall. The overall sentiment remained weak over raging inflation and policy tightening signals from the Federal Reserve.
After Thursday’s purchase, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turned net sellers on Friday, having sold shares worth $477.3 million. In contrast, local investors purchased equities worth $456.6 million, provisional data on the bourses showed. Barring four sessions in April, FPIs were net sellers in each day of the month with the monthly sales tally hitting $3.86 billion.
While the Sensex slid 460.19 points or 0.80% to settle at 57,060.87 points, the Nifty50 gave up 142.50 points or 0.83% to end the session at 17,102.55. “Markets are witnessing volatile swing weighed by concerns over multi-decade-high inflation rates, potential aggressive interest rate hike by the US Fed and slowing global growth along with prolonged Russia-Ukraine war,” said Siddhartha Khemka, head – retail research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Despite sharp selling pressure in the last hour, the Nifty held on to its key psychological level of 17,000 mark. Going ahead, volatility is likely to continue as the focus will shift to central bank policy meetings both in the US and the UK, Khemka said.
Axis Bank, which reported a lower-than-expected operating profit for the March quarter, slid the most on the Sensex and Nifty. Its shares plunged 6.6% on Friday to hit one-month low of Rs 728.70 on the BSE. “Despite a gradual shift in its incremental loan mix towards higher-yielding loans, we do not yet see evidence of Axis Bank’s ability to exercise better pricing power, which remains a key driver for RoA reflation. We trim our FY22/FY23E earnings estimates by 4-5% each to factor in higher cost-to-assets,” observed analysts at HDFC Securities Institutional Research.
However, global markets were trading in the green supported by positive economic data from Germany and the euro zone. However, restrictions in Beijing and Russia’s confirmation to strike Kyiv during the UN visit capped the upside. Barring India, all the major indices in Asia ended the day in the green with Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite surging 4% and 2.4% respectively. European markets were trading about 1% higher.
All sectoral indices compiled by the BSE closed lower on Friday with BSE oil & gas, power falling 2.6% and 1.9%, respectively.
