Sensex falters after initial surge, ends in red on growth worries
Mumbai, March 27 (IANS) The much-awaited repo rate cut was not enough to enthuse the stock markets on Friday as the BSE Sensex ended 131 points lower.
It was a largely volatile trade session as the 30-stock Sensex gained as much as 1,179 points earlier in the day.
The Nifty50 on the National Stock Echange, however, ended marginally higher than its previous close recovering from the day’s low.
Analysts were of the view that the concerns raised by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das over the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the global and Indian economy weighed on the investor sentiments.
Das noted that that there is high probability of parts of the global economy slipping into a recession.
“Expectations of a shallow recovery in 2020 from 2019’s decade low in global growth have been dashed,” he said, adding, “the outlook is now heavily contingent upon the intensity, spread and duration of the pandemic. There is a rising probability that large parts of the global economy will slip into recession”.
In a much-anticipated move, the Monetary Policy Committee of the RBI on Friday decided to reduce repo rate by 75 bps to 4.4 per cent. The apex bank also took several other measure to ensure liquidity flow.
Analysts were of the opinion that the market had factored in the rate cut and the other measures.
The BSE Sensex closed 29,815.59, lower by 131.18 or 0.44 per cent from the previous close of 29,946.77.
It had opened at 30,747.81 and touched an intra-day high of 31,126.03 and a low of 29,346.99 points.
The Nifty50 settled at 8,660.25, higher by 18.80 points or 0.22 per cent from its previous close.
Foreign institutional investors during the bought stocks worth Rs 355.78 crore and the domestic institutional investors bought stocks worth Rs 1,703.72 crore.
Among the Sensex stocks, Axis Bank gained the most, by 4.98 per cent, followed by ITC (up 3.63 per cent) and NTPC (3.17 per cent), while Bajaj Finance (down 8.87 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (down 8.04 per cent) and Bharti Airtel (6.09 per cent) lost the most.
–IANS
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