Indian stock markets opened flat on Tuesday because of the continued selling pressure exerted by foreign investors. Both indices gained yesterday despite the selling of shares by foreign investors, estimated at Rs 3,228 crore.
The Nifty opened at 24,328.85 points, down 10.30 points or 0.04 percent. The Sensex, on the other hand, barely budged, inching upwards by just 32 points to open at 80,037.20 points.
As experts point out, heavy retail buying was the reason for the rally in the markets yesterday. Retail buying cushioned the markets from selling by foreign investors. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services said, “An interesting feature of yesterday’s 158-point rally in the Nifty is that it happened when FII selling at Rs 3,228 crore exceeded the DII buying of Rs 1,401 crore. This itself indicates the return of retail investors in buying mode. While the fall in FII selling is encouraging, FIIs may continue to sell.”
Among sectoral indices, Nifty Auto, Nifty FMCG, Nifty IT, and Nifty Metal all opened lower. But the rest of the indices logged gains during the opening session. On the National Stock Exchange, within the Nifty 50 list, 15 stocks opened in the green whereas 35 witnessed a decline. The top gainers were NTPC, BEL, and ICICI Bank. Major losers, on the contrary, were M&M, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Life, and Shriram Finance.
Soni Patnaik, AVP and Derivatives Research Analyst at JM Financial Services said, “Nifty started the final week with rollovers at 30 percent as FIIs increased their long positions from 33 percent to 40 percent in futures and options. Going ahead call writers heavily positioned at 24500 may result in resistance. Only moving above this level could trigger short covering towards the 24700/24800 range. For now, 24200 is an important support level on a close-to-close basis.”
The quarterly results of several major companies are due on Friday. Second-quarter financial results for FY25 at Maruti Suzuki, Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Cipla, Canara Bank, and Edelweiss Financial Services are scheduled on Friday.
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 0.55 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 1 percent. The Taiwanese market was under pressure, however, as the Taiwan Weighted fell 1.72 percent. The KOSPI in South Korea slipped marginally into the red at a point in time during this report.
ANI
