Nifty slides below 17,650; Sensex tumbles 642 pts; VIX spurts nearly 7%

The key equity indices extended losses and traded near the day's low in early afternoon trade. The Nifty slipped below the 17,650 level. Barring the Nifty Pharma index, all the other sectoral indices on the NSE traded in red.

At 12:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 642.26 points or 1.06% to 60,030.46. The Nifty 50 index lost 193.85 points or 1.09% to 17,632.85.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index slipped 1.11% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index declined 0.93%.

Sellers outnumbered buyers. On the BSE, 847 shares rose and 2,481 shares fell. A total of 133 shares were unchanged.

Domestic sentiment was dented amid negative global cues. Traders awaited the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting due later today. After the strong US economic data announced last week, speculations are high about rise in US inflation that may prompt US Fed to further hike interest rate.

Derivatives:

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of the market's expectation of volatility over the near term, jumped 6.83% to 14.9650. The Nifty 23 February 2023 futures were trading at 17,636.45, at a premium of 3.6 points as compared with the spot at 17,632.85.

The Nifty option chain for the 23 February 2023 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 168.7 lakh contracts at the 18,000 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 94 lakh contracts were seen at 17,500 strike price.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty Financial Services index slipped 1.31% to 18,023.90. The index rose 0.05% in the past trading session.

Power Finance Corporation (down 2.84%), Bajaj Finance (down 2.31%), REC (down 1.84%), SBI Life Insurance Company (down 1.76%), Bajaj Finserv (down 1.64%), Muthoot Finance (down 1.56%), State Bank of India (down 1.5%), Shriram Finance (down 1.47%), ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company (down 1.35%) and HDFC Bank (down 1.31%) declined.

State Bank of India (SBI) was down 1.5%. The PSU bank announced that it has raised Rs 4,544 crore through allotment of non-convertible, taxable, perpetual, subordinated, unsecured, fully paid up Basel III compliant AT- 1 bonds in the nature of debentures.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Elantas Beck India advanced 3.30% after the company reported 46.7% jump in standalone net profit to Rs 24.77 crore on a 13.1% rise in net sales to Rs 164.62 crore in Q4 December 2022 over Q4 December 2021.

Ahluwalia Contracts (India) rose 0.66% after the company said that it has received an order from Puri Construction for civil and structural works of the 'THE ARAVALLIS' project based in Gurugram, Haryana. The value of the aforementioned contract is Rs 147 crore.

Manappuram Finance declined 1.28%. The Kerala-based gold NBFC on Wednesday (22 February 2023) announced that its board may consider raising funds through debt securities in March 2023.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News