Sensex falls 150 points in early trade, Nifty slips below 16,550; pharma, FMCG stocks rally

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Benchmark equity indices opened in the red on Tuesday tracking a negative trend in Asian peers. In early deals, Sensex dropped 150 points or 0.27% to 55,431. NSE Nifty 50 was at 16,545, down 17 points or 0.11%.

“Market is slowly moving into a consolidation phase with strong support coming from large-caps. The current trend of large-cap outperformance is likely to continue in the very short- term. Presently there are no major global cues that can sway the market trend. But domestic cues like the sustained decline in Covid cases and economic activity returning back to normal are positives. At the present high market level, valuations are stretched and scary but there is enough momentum in the market to take the Nifty to 16700 level. It appears that the phase of easy money making is over. Day trading is likely to turn risky,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Gainers & losers

Sectoral strand

Sectoral indices on the NSE were mixed. Nifty Pharma advanced 0.54%, Nifty FMCG rose 0.43%, Nifty Realty and Nifty Metal indices were up about 0.15% each. Nifty Bank, Nifty Auto, and Nifty IT indices were in the red.

Broader market

The broader markets were also trading flat. The BSE MidCap index opened flat with a positive bias of 0.10% at 22,900 level and the BSE SmallCap index was quoting at 26,239 up by 0.13%.

The market breadth was flat as 1,167 shares declined compared to 1,159 advanced and 76 remained unchanged.

Global markets

Overseas, Asian stocks are trading mixed on Tuesday as investors weighed a record-breaking run in the Dow and S&P 500 against concerns that the delta virus variant will choke global growth.

Investors continue to monitor the Covid situation in Australia, with the country’s largest cities currently under lockdown.

In the US, stocks ended at record highs Monday despite earlier losses tied to weaker-than-expected Chinese economic data and the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.