Bears Return! Sensex Tanks 700 pts, Nifty Slips Below 19,550; Why Are Markets Falling?

Sensex, Nifty Fall: Domestic markets edged lower in Wednesday’s intra-day trade, tracking subdued cues from global markets.

Benchmark indices the S&P BSE Sensex dropped over 700 points or 0.9 per cent at day’s low of 65,757 levels, whereas Nifty50 skid over 200 points or 1 per cent at day’s low of 19,523 levels.

Among the Sensex stocks, Tata Steel, L&T, JSW Steel, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Bank, TCS, and Tata Motors opened lower, while only Reliance Industries and Asian Paints opened higher.

Broader markets, too, exhibited muted trends, with Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices slipping up to 0.8 per cent. Volatility gauge, India VIX, meanwhile, climbed 8 per cent to 11.13.

All sectors plunged in the sea of red, with Nifty Metal, Nifty PSU Bank, and Nifty Oil & Gas indices slipping over 1 per cent each.

Shares of Sula Vineyards opened 6 per cent lower after the firm received a notice of Rs 115.8 crore excise duty from the Maharashtra excise department. The company said the order does not affect the existing business.

Why Are Markets Falling Today? Here’s What Expert’s Say

Mukesh Kochar, National Head-Wealth, AUM Capital said: “Fitch has signaled a possible downgrade in May before the debt ceiling agreement is reached. However, the timing might have surprised the market. Anything happening in the US always impacts the world market. However, we believe that the impact should be short-lived as one rating agency S&P has already downgraded the US to AA+ beforehand. This time the impact should be for a couple of days and the market may focus on other fundamental factors.”

Impact on the Indian market should also be short-lived and other factors such as earnings, crude prices and RBI policy and fund flows will be the key to the market. Having said that market is heated the world over and may find a reason to correct it, he said.

“The major news after market close yesterday is the rating agency Fitch’s downgrade of US sovereign rating from AAA to AA+. This has impacted bond and currency markets with the US 10-year yield rising above 4%,” V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said.

“The impact on the stock markets is likely to be negative but not large since the US economy is now headed for a soft landing and not a recession, as markets feared earlier,” Vijayakumar added.