Sensex slides 773 points, Nifty ends below 17400 amid global pullback; IT bleed

Indian benchmarks cracked in line with global peers, falling 1.3 per cent on Friday, as multi-decade high inflation in the US jolted investor confidence who feared bulkier rate hikes by the world’s biggest economy.

The S&P BSE Sensex plunged 773 points to end at 58,153 and the Nifty50 closed slumped 231 points to close at 17,375. With this, the indices halted their three-day winning streak, slipping 0.8 per cent for the week.

In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices shed about 2 per cent each, clocking weekly losses of up to 3.4 per cent.

Given the situation of rate hike in the US, all the sectoral indices settled in the negative territory today with technology and public sector banks being the worst hit. The IT and PSB indices dropped nearly 3 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively, while Bank, Financial Services, and Realty indices slipped upwards of 1 per cent on the NSE.

Among individual stocks, only 3 counters on the Sensex and 5 on the Nifty managed to eke out gains. These included Indian Oil Corporation, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, BPCL, and NTPC.

Meanwhile, the laggards were Grasim Industries, Tech M, Infosys, HCL Tech, HDFC, Wipro, UPL, Powergrid, Ultratech Cement, Nestle India, Kotak Bank, Titan Company, TCS, SBI, HDFc Life, Tata Motors, Bajaj twins, and ICICI Bank. All these stocks fell between 1.5 and 3.2 per cent.

In the broader market, the shares of food delivery company Zomato dropped 9 per cent to Rs 85.85 on the BSE in Friday’s intra-day trade after the company reported sequentially flat revenue growth at Rs 1,112 crore for October-December quarter (Q3FY22). On year-on-year (YoY) basis, the revenue growth was 78 per cent.

Nuvoco Vistas Corporation, too, sunk 7 per cent and hit a record low of Rs 398 after the company reported consolidated loss of Rs 86 crore in December quarter (Q3FY22) due to lower revenue.

Shares of PB Fintech, which operates online insurance broker Policybazaar and loan marketplace Paisabazaar, dipped 11 per cent to Rs 774.5 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) after around 7.5 million equity shares, representing 1.67 per cent of total equity, of PB Fintech changed hands on the NSE

That apart, shares of Solara Active Pharma Sciences, GE Power and Stove Kraft have tanked up to 35 per cent during this week after the companies reported a weak set of numbers for the quarter ended December 2021 (Q3FY22). In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.86 per cent in this time period.

Here are some picks from the week gone by.