Mumbai: The Indian stock market closed in the red on Friday, October 4 following the conflict in the Middle East.
Indian investors lost over Rs 14 lakh crore in the last two trading sessions as the market capitalization of all listed companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) skewed to Rs 461 lakh crore, up from Rs 475 lakh crore earlier.
At the close, the Sensex was down 808 points or 0.98% at 81,688 and the Nifty was down 235 points or 0.93% at 25,014.
M&M, Bajaj Finance, Nestle, Asian Paints, Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement, ITC, HUL, Power Grid, HDFC Bank, Reliance, Bajaj Finserv, ICICI Bank and NTPC were the top losers. Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, TCS and SBI were the top gainers.
A sell-off is also seen in mid-cap and small-cap stocks. The Nifty Midcap index closed at 58,747, down 550 points or 0.93 percent and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index settled at 18,758, down 193 points or 1.02 percent.
Among sectoral indices, autos, financial services, pharmaceuticals, FMCG, metals, real estate, energy and services were the biggest laggards. Only the IT and PSU banking indices closed in the red.
India’s VIX, an indicator of market volatility, closed at 14.12, up 7.21 percent.
According to market experts, “bearish sentiment continues as investors monitor the escalating conflict in the Middle East and have adopted a sell-back strategy. Crude oil prices have risen sharply, but may be capped by an increase in production from OPEC Plus.”
“The decline was in sectors led by real estate, autos and FMCG, apart from IT stocks which gained on expected benefits from US rate cuts and defensiveness. Market pessimism is expected to continue in the near term amid rising crude oil prices and financial flows to cheaper markets such as China,” they added.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 15,243 crore on October 3, while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 12,914 crore on the same day.
