Sensex Sheds 161 Points; Nifty Closes Below 12000; Bharti Infratel Loses 11%

It was a fourth-straight session of losses for the benchmark indices, wherein Nifty closed below 12000 levels at 11992, while Sensex lost 161 points at 40,894 points

Sensex Sheds 161 Points; Nifty Closes Below 12000; Bharti Infratel Loses 11%

A number of factors weighed on the indices and while it was viewed that measures taken in Budget 2020 and recent RBI steps would fuel rally in small cap and mid-cap stocks, it was stocks within this pack that corrected more in comparison to benchmark indices.

PSU Banking and metal index were the worst hit, with both correcting steeply by 1.91% and 2%, respectively. Nifty Media was the only index up in trade today with positive contribution from its constituent stock such a Network 18, TV18 Broadcast, Hathway Cable that are to see merger as announced by RIL.

LIC Housing Finance shares tumbled over 5% in trade today after Credit Suisse downgraded the stock's rating to underperform from outperform and also cut price target by 36% to Rs 320. The stock last at around 2:31 pm traded lower by 4.66% at Rs. 362.15 per share.

Both Vodafone Idea and Airtel fell today as on the former investors' remained cautioned even as the company's board approved payment of Rs. 2500 crore in AGR dues to the DoT and another batch of Rs. 1000 crore would be paid by the end of the week. In trade today, Vodafone stock fell as much as 17% on the NSE to Rs. 2.83.

Meanwhile, after the iphone maker announced that it will fail to meet sales target for the March month, Asian markets extended losses too.

Rupee in the afternoon session depreciated further to 71.55 per US dollar on weakness in equities.

GoodReturns.in