- India’s Nifty and Sensex opened Tuesday in the red after a positive close on Monday.
- On Monday, Nifty hit an all-time high near 22,190, Sensex closed in on $73,000.
- Nifty and Sensex traders brace for a relatively light India’s economic docket and Fed Minutes from the US.
The Sensex 30 and Nifty 50, India’s key benchmark indices, opened lower on Tuesday, having ended Monday on the right side, tracking the losses in their Asian counterparts. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index is down 0.30% while China’s A50 index also sheds 0.30% on the day.
Indian indices open in the red on Tuesday, as investors likely consolidate the recent bullish momentum before placing fresh bets. The Nifty 50 hit a new all-time high of 22,186.65 on Monday but pulled back into the close.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty 50 loses 0.22% on the day to trade at 22,067 while the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex 30 is down 0.16% at 72,568.852.
The US stock markets are set to reopen on Tuesday after Monday’s Presidents’ Day holiday.
- Power Grid Corp, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Dr Reddy’s Labs, LTIMindtree and ONGC are among major gainers on the Nifty in early trades while losers were Coal India, Eicher Motors, Bajaj Auto, M&M and HDFC Life.
- Among the corporate news, 3.2 crore Whirlpool shares (24.9% equity) worth Rs 4,039 crore were exchanged at an average at Rs 1,280 per share, per CNBC-TV18.
- Vibhor Steel Tubes to debut on bourses on February 20
- On Monday, Bajaj Auto announced February 29 as the record date for a proposed buyback plan amounting to Rs 4,000 crore, at Rs 10,000 per share.
- Shares of Paisalo Digital rallied 15% to hit a record high of Rs 164 on Monday, surging 63% in past month on promoter buying and strong December quarter (Q3FY24) earnings.
- Novartis India share price surges nearly 11% to hit a 52-week high as Novartis AG announces sale plans for the company.
- India’s trade data for January showed Thursday a shrinking Trade Deficit of $17.49 billion.
- US Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) data came in hotter-than-expected and helped push back the market’s expectations of a Fed rate cut from March to June. Markets are currently pricing a 77% chance of a cut in June, the CME Group’s Fed Watch Tool shows.
- Attention now turns toward the Minutes of the Fed February meeting and American tech major Nvidia Earnings report due on Wednesday, as the Indian economic calendar remains devoid of any top-tier data release this week.
Sensex FAQs
The Sensex is a name for one of India’s most closely monitored stock indexes. The term was coined in the 1980s by analyst Deepak Mohoni by mashing the words sensitive and index together. The index plots a weighted average of the share price of 30 of the most established stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Each corporation’s weighting is based on its “free-float capitalization”, or the value of all its shares readily available for trading.
Given it is a composite, the value of the Sensex is first and foremost dependent on the performance of its constituent companies as revealed in their quarterly and annual results. Government policies are another factor. In 2016 the government decided to phase out high value currency notes, for example, and certain companies saw their share price fall as a result. When the government decided to cut corporation tax in 2019, meanwhile, the Sensex gained a boost. Other factors include the level of interest rates set by the Reserve Bank of India, since that dictates the cost of borrowing, climate change, pandemics and natural disasters
The Sensex started life on April 1 1979 at a base level of 100. It reached its highest recorded level so far, at 73,328, on Monday, January 15, 2024 (this is being written in Feb 2024). The Index closed above the 10,000 mark for the first time on February 7, 2006. On March 13, 2014 the Sensex closed higher than Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index to become the major Asian stock index with the highest value. The index’s biggest gain in a single day occurred on April 7, 2020, when it rose 2,476 points; its deepest single-day loss occurred on January 21, 2008, when it plunged 1,408 points due the US subprime crisis.
Major companies within the Sensex include Reliance Industries Ltd, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ITC Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Tata Steel, HCL Technologies, Infosys, State Bank of India, Sun Pharma, Tata Consultancy Services and Tech Mahindra.
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