Positive sentiment from yesterday’s strong rally was quickly wiped off this morning, with investors booking profit. Early Thursday trades saw volatility as foreign fund outflows continued amid geopolitical uncertainties.
Automakers Mahindra & Mahindra and Maruti Suzuki were consistently trading in the green. Other major Sensex constituents that gained included NTPC, Tata Steel, Kotak Bank, Eternal, and ICICI Bank.
However, they were not enough to arrest the slump that saw Titan, Hindustan Unilever, TCS, IndiGo, and Adani Ports as the major laggards.
Despite gaining 380 points to hit a 78,339.24 high in the morning, a 227-point slump from last session’s close brought the Sensex down to as low as 77,731.33.
Brent crude moved up 0.77 per cent to $102 per barrel on Thursday morning, after US markets ended sharply higher. On Wednesday, FIIs offloaded ₹5,834.90 crore worth of equities in Indian markets. This added to the ₹3,621.58 crore FII outflow on Tuesday.
Earlier in the morning, Indian stocks opened higher, extending gains from Wednesday on hopes of a potential US-Iran peace deal.
This came a day after S&P Global touted the nation’s GDP growth to ease to 6.6 per cent in FY2027 from its earlier 7.1 per cent estimate.
Another major development was South Indian Bank posting a 19 per cent jump in its standalone Q4 net profit to ₹407.50 crore. The lender also saw its core net interest income improve by 5 per cent year-on-year to ₹915 crore for the quarter.
