The Indian equity benchmarks opened lower on Monday as indicated by the SGX index. At 9:18 am, BSE Sensex dipped 72 points or 0.13 per cent at 55,696, whereas the Nifty 50 index slipped 16 points or 0.10 per cent at 16,567, ahead of the three-day meet by the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) beginning June 6. The RBI MPC is likely to hike the key repo rates by 25 to 40 basis points (bps) in order to tame inflation. The MPC had last month, in an unscheduled meeting hiked the repo rate by 40 basis points at 4.40 per cent.
Meanwhile, Nifty Midcap 50 index was down 0.37 per cent at 7,683 whereas the Nifty Midcap 100 index was down 0.67 per cent at 9,151. Barring the stocks banking, auto, financial services and healthcare, all other sectoral indices were trading in red.
Amongst the Nifty 50 companies, ONGC, Mahindra and Mahindra, Bajaj Auto, Reliance Industries, and Cipla were the top gainers, whereas Tech Mahindra, Britannia, Wipro, Infosys, and TCS were the top losers. Amongst the BSE-listed companies, Mahindra and Mahindra, Axis Bank, NTPC, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy, Maruti, Reliance Industries and IndusInd Bank were the only top gainers, whereas Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever Limited, Asian Paint, and Tata Steel were the top losers.
Meanwhile, the major Asian indices were trading higher after a muted start on Monday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 0.33 per cent to 27,853, whereas South Korea’s KOSPI rose 0.44 per cent to 2,670. The Hang Seng index was up 0.83 per cent. While the Shanghai Composite surged 0.25 per cent, the Shenzhen Component was up 0.47 per cent.
However, owing to worries about key rate hike by the Fed, major indices in the US were trading lower on Friday. The S&P 500 fell 68 points or 1.6 per cent to 4,108, whereas the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 348 points or 1 per cent to 32,899. The Nasdaq Composite was trading 304 points or 2.5 per cent lower to 12,012.
Back at home, the foreign institutional investors (FII) continued to be the net sellers worth Rs 3,770 crore, whereas the domestic institutional investors (DII) remained the net buyers worth Rs 2,360 crore on Friday, according to the data available on NSE. Moreover, the Rupee slipped 6 paise to settle at 77.66 against the US Dollar on Friday.
On Monday, the sharp price hike by Saudi Arabia for its crude sales in July led to higher oil prices. The Brent crude oil benchmark surged $1.80 or 1.5 per cent at $121 per barrel at 2319 GMT.
JSW Steel, Sun Pharma, Coal India Limited, Tata Consumer Products, Vedanta, Welspun Corp, Adani Transmission, and Poonawala Fincorp are the stocks that will remain in focus on Monday.
