Sensex, Nifty decline amid weak cues from global peers

Amid negative global cues and investor concerns on potential policy tightening by the US Fed, benchmark equity indices opened lower on Thursday, dragged by the losses in IT and banking stocks.

At 9.16 am, the BSE Sensex was trading 116 points or 0.25% lower at 61,825. Nifty50 was trading at 18,364, down 46 points or 0.25%.

“The fact that Sensex and Nifty are at record closing highs tells us that the buy on dips strategy has worked well in this market. Therefore, this strategy can be expected to work, going forward, too,” V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at said.

“High-quality stocks in banking, IT, telecom and capital goods form the backbone of this large-cap driven rally. Dips in this segment are likely to get bought. India is the only large market that crossed previous record highs. This will stand the market in good stead. Even though the mother market US has turned a bit weak, the sustained fall in US bond yields is a positive for emerging markets like India,” Vijayakumar said.

Among Sensex stocks, , , Titan, , , M&M and TCS were the top losers, falling about 0.5-1.5%. , , , SBI, and Wipro also opened lower.

While L&T, , , , , , NTPC and opened with gains.

Sectorally, Nifty IT fell 0.91% and Nifty Metal 0.66%. Nifty FMCG and Nifty Oil & Gas, meanwhile, opened higher. In the broader market, Nifty Midcap50 fell 0.19% and Smallcap50 0.07%.

Wall Street's main indexes closed lower on Wednesday after top retailer target's dour holiday forecast stoked fears of inflation hurting a crucial business season for retailers. On Wednesday US market’s Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.12%, S&P 500 dropped 0.83% and Nasdaq Composite declined 1.54%.

Whereas in early trade in Asian markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 0.37%, China’s Shanghai Composite 1% and South Korea’s Kospi 1.07%.

Brent crude January futures declined 1.06% to $91.88 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 1.30% to $84.48 a barrel.