Benchmarks near day's low; IT stocks tumble

The key equity barometers traded in a narrow range near the day's low in mid-morning trade. The Nifty continued to trade below the 17,350 mark. IT shares declined across the board.

At 11:23 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 917.17 points or 1.56% to 58,008.86. The Nifty 50 index lost 276.60 points or 1.57% to 17,329.25.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index shed 1.43% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index lost 1.33%.

The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 793 shares rose and 2374 shares fell. A total of 90 shares were unchanged.

Weak global cues spoiled investor sentiment as the higher-than-expected US inflation data raised fears of aggressive rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve.

Yield on the 10-year US Treasury note ended above 2% for the first time since August 2019 after US inflation came in higher than expected. US consumer prices rose at an annual rate of 7.5% in January, which was the highest print since February 1982.

Further, St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said that the data had made him "dramatically" more hawkish and that he now wanted a full percentage point of interest rate hikes by Jul 1.

Investors are fully pricing in a rate hike of at least 25 basis points from the Fed at its Mar 15-16 policy meeting, and forecasting a significant chance of a 50 bps hike.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty IT index fell 2.74% to 34,374.20. The index had gained 2.38% in the past two sessions.

Larsen & Toubro Infotech (down 4.51%), L&T Technology Services (down 3.90%), MindTree (down 3.87%), Coforge (down 3.71%), Infosys (down 3.03%), Mphasis (down 2.96%), Tech Mahindra (down 2.95%), Wipro (down 2.42%), HCL Tech (down 2.06%) and TCS (down 1.92%) declined.

Stocks in Spotlight:

JSW Steel fell 1.36% to Rs 663.35. The steel maker's standalone crude steel production for the month of January 2022 grew 15% year on year to 16.46 lakh tonnes as against 14.32 lakh tonnes in January 2021. On a sequential basis, crude steel production rose by 8% in January 2022 from 15.26 lakh tonnes produced in December 2021.

Aegis Logistics rose 2.35% to Rs 218.05. The company reported consolidated net profit of Rs 109.15 crore in Q3FY22 as compared to Rs 78.05 crore in Q3FY21. Total income rose to Rs 1222.17 crore from Rs 1555.89 crore YoY.

Torrent Power slipped 1.10% to Rs 501.10. The company has entered into a Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Blue Daimond Properties and Balrampur Chini Mills Limited (the Sellers) for the acquisition of 100% equity share capital of Visual Percept Solar Projects (the SPV).

Quess Corp gained 1.23% to Rs 669.35. The company's consolidated net profit soared 94.22% to Rs 88.51 crore on a 31.23% increase in revenue from operations to Rs 3,684.98 crore in Q3 December 2021 over Q3 December 2020.

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