Bloodbath on D-Street! IT stocks drag Sensex over 650 points lower, Nifty below 19,800

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

The BSE Sensex was trading 690 points or 1.02% lower at 66,882. Nifty50 was trading at 19,797, down 182 points or 0.91% at around 9.18 am. Among Sensex stocks, Infosys was the top loser, falling over 8%.

HCL Tech, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, HUL, TCS, and Reliance also opened with losses. On the other hand, L&T, Kotak Bank, SBI, Nestle, M&M, and Titan opened with gains. Among individual stocks, Tanla Platforms opened 7% higher as the company reported a rise in consolidated net profit in the first quarter.

Shares of Union Bank also opened 4% higher as the lender reported a rise in June quarter net profit, and asset quality improves sequentially. On the sectoral front, Nifty IT dropped over 3%, and Nifty FMCG declined 0.51%. Whereas, Banks, financial, auto, media, pharma, and healthcare sectors opened with gains.

In the broader market, Nifty Midcap 100 fell 0.15%, while Nifty Smallcap 100 gained 0.30%.Experts View «Infosys’ poor guidance of 1 to 3.5% revenue growth guidance for FY 24 will drag the stock down and, perhaps, Nifty with it since Infosys has a 5.9% weightage in the index. The lackluster performance of HUL with a meager 3% volume growth in Q1 can be another drag on the market,» V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said. «However, the relentless FPI flows, which are overwhelming everything else now, have the potential to take the Nifty to 20,000 level soon.

Nifty Bank can provide support to the rally,» Vijayakumar added. Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities, said, «Nifty has been finding support on its 5 days EMA, which is currently placed at 19778. Resistance for the Nifty is seen at 20,055.»Global Markets The S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell on Thursday, weighed down