India : Nifty dips for 2nd day, Sensex manages to hold 28k; Midcap rises

Equity benchmarks remained lacklustre for the second consecutive session Wednesday and closed lower amid mixed global cues as investors maintained cautious stance ahead of the minutes of the US Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting later today. Lack of domestic cues also caused the listless trade.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 59.24 points at 28005.37 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 18.50 points to 8624.05.

However, the broader markets outperformed benchmarks on consistent inflow of foreign money and partially supported by positive breadth. About 1455 shares advanced against 1258 declining shares on the BSE.

FIIs bought more than Rs 7,000 crore worth of shares in August, taking the total inflow of foreign money to more than Rs 53,000 crore since March.

“Bias is still positive but since we’re closer to the F&O expiry week, traders should maintain cautious approach especially in index trades,” Jayant Manglik of Religare Securities said.

Globally investors closely watched the release of minutes of US Federal Reserve for direction of further rate hike.

“Comments from Fed presidents playing up chances of even a September US rate hike, kept global markets on a watch mode, especially with FOMC minutes due for release later in the day,” Anand James of Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services said.

European stocks were marginally lower, at the time of writing this copy. Asia ended mixed with Nikkei rising further by 0.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the government official said the announcement of new RBI governor is likely this week. The current governor Raghuram Rajan’s three-year term will end on September 4.

Technology stocks remained under pressure as IT major TCS lost 2.5 percent followed by Infosys (down 1.67 percent) and Wipro (down 1.4 percent). The Royal Bank of Scotland had cancelled one big banking contract with Infosys last week.

Adani Ports (down 2.3 percent) and Cipla (down 0.65 percent) saw profit booking after a 7-percent rally in previous session. FMCG stocks also caught in bear grip with ITC and HUL falling 0.8 percent each.

Buying in auto and metals stocks limited the market fall. Hero Motocorp, Bajaj Auto, Tata Steel and Coal India gained 2-3 percent. HDFC Bank and Axis Bank were up around a percent.