Market at day`s low; Nifty hits 52-week low

The benchmark indices hit fresh intraday low and traded near the day`s low with major losses in the afternoon trade. The Nifty hit a 52-week low of 15,408.50. Selling was wide spread. Metal, realty and media shares slumped. Trading was volatile ahead of the expiry of weekly index options on the NSE today.

At 13:24 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 802.4 points or 1.53% to 51,738.99. The Nifty 50 index lost 270.45 points or 1.72% to 15,421.70.

The broader market underperformed the frontline indices. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index slipped 2.10% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index fell 2.66%.

Sellers stood four times as that of the buyers. On the BSE, 638 shares rose and 2,611 shares fell. A total of 127 shares were unchanged.

Investors digested the US central bank`s policy action on Wednesday. The US Fed announced a 75 basis point hike in interest rates, its biggest jump in 28 years, in line with market expectations, to tame the soaring inflation.

Gainers & Losers:

Britannia (up 0.29%), Maruti (up 0.12%) and Hindustan Unilever (up 0.04%) were major Nifty gainers.

Tata Steel (down 4.18%), Hindalco (down 4.13%), ONGC (down 4.03%), Cipla (down 3.73%) and Bharti Airtel (down 3.64%) were majority Nifty losers.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Indian Overseas Bank declined 2.40%. The board of the PSU bank approved raising of funds worth Rs 2,000 crore by issuing equity shares and bonds in the financial year ending 31 March 2022. The board of directors has approved the issue of equity shares to a maximum of Rs 1,000 crore through follow on public offer or rights issue, with or without participation from the government of India or issue of equity shares to qualified institutional buyers (QIBs). Apart from that, the bank may also issue shares to employees or issue shares on a preferential basis to LIC and other insurance companies or mutual funds, or QIBs.

Cyient fell 2.62%. The small-cap IT firm said that it has appointed Prabhakar Shetty as the chief digital officer of the company. Prabhakar Shetty will lead digital strategies to expand the company`s digital technology footprint by scaling the services lines related to connected manufacturing, intelligent products, and platforms and strengthening IntelliCyient, its digital solutions suite.

TCS was down 0.94% to Rs 3176.55. The IT major on Thursday announced that it has been selected by QIAGEN, a leading global provider of Sample to Insights solutions in life sciences and molecular diagnostics, as the strategic partner for its cloud transformation journey. QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands-based holding company, is the leading global provider of sample to insight solutions that enable customers to gain valuable molecular insights from samples containing the building blocks of life.

Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) rose 1.62% after the company announced that it has secured a maintenance dredging contract worth Rs 250 crore per year from Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA). As per the regulatory filing, JNPA awarded the maintenance of Mumbai & JNPA navigational channel to DCI that includes dredging of 20 million cubic meter plus or minus 20% yearly with the project cost of about Rs 250 crore per year.

Global Markets:

The Dow Futures tumbled 529 points, indicating a weak opening in the US stocks today.

European shares tumbled while most Asian shares ended higher on Thursday after the Federal Reserve raised benchmark interest rates 75 basis points in a move that equates to the most aggressive hike since 1994. The Fed said in a statement it was committed to bringing down inflation to 2%. It also said it would continue to reduce holdings of Treasury securities and agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities. Officials also significantly cut their outlook for 2022 economic growth, now anticipating just a 1.7% gain in GDP, down from 2.8% from March.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell also said during his afternoon press conference that, �either a 50 basis point or a 75 basis point increase seems most likely at our next meeting.�

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