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Indian benchmark stock indices tracked marginally lower at the opening bell Wednesday, primarily attributable to profit booking by investors after the recent rally which led to the indices hitting all-time highs.
At 10.07 am, Sensex was 0.3 per cent lower at 69,312 points, whereas Nifty was similarly 0.3 per cent lower at 20,848 points. Their all-time highs tasted lately were at 70,057 points and 21,037 points, respectively. This morning, Nifty sectoral indices were mixed, with Nifty IT the top loser (1.3 per cent), and Nifty auto the top mover (0.4 per cent). Among the widely-tracked Nifty stock stocks, TCS, HDFC Life, Infosys, Axis Bank, and Bajaj Finserv were the top five laggards, while NTPC, Hero Motocorp, Power Grid, Eicher Motors, and ITC were the top gainers. "The short-term undercurrent of the market is bullish despite the high valuations. The growth momentum in the economy, the sustained buying by DIIs and retail investors, reversal of the FPI strategy from selling to buying and favourable global cues will keep the market resilient," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services. "From the global perspective, tonight's Fed message is important in setting the global market trend. Markets will wait for the Fed chief's message before taking a decisive turn." The monetary policy committee of the US Federal Reserve will reveal their bi-monthly policy tonight, which will be closely watched by market participants for fresh cues. After sharply tightening monetary policy over the past year and a half to reduce inflation, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) in its latest meeting voted to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 5-1/4 to 5-1/2 per cent, keeping the policy rate unchanged for the second straight time on a trot. US Federal Reserve's commitment has been to bring down consumer inflation to its target of 2 per cent. The monetary policy committee participants in the US were of the view that further tightening of monetary policy would be appropriate if incoming information indicated that progress toward the US Federal Reserve's inflation objective was "insufficient", the minutes of the previous review meeting had then revealed. The indices back home in India were also under pressure due to a relatively higher retail inflation reported in November. India's Consumer Price Index has come higher at 5.55 per cent in November compared to 4.87 per cent in October, though lower than the market expectation of 6 per cent. "We expect the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to closely monitor inflation as it remains above the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) long-term target of 4 per cent. In our base case, we expect CPI inflation to average 5.5 per cent this fiscal, and foresee the RBI holding interest rates steady for the remainder of this fiscal," said Dharmakirti Joshi, Chief Economist, CRISIL. (ANI)
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