A screen displaying Sensex results on the façade of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai. file | Photo Credit: Reuters
Declining for the fifth straight session, equity benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty fell on Thursday amid concerns that the US Federal Reserve may raise interest rates further to curb inflation.
Traders said fresh foreign fund outflows and a mostly weak trend in Asian markets also weighed on investor sentiment.
In highly volatile trade amid expiry of monthly derivatives, BSE Sensex closed 139.18 points or 0.23% lower at 59,605.80. It touched a high of 59,960.04 and a low of 59,406.31 in the day’s trade.
The NSE Nifty closed 43.05 points or 0.25% down at 17,511.25.
In the Sensex pack, Asian Paints, Larsen & Toubro, Titan, IndusInd Bank, Bharti Airtel, Power Grid, Bajaj Finserv, Infosys, HDFC Bank and HDFC Bank were the major laggards.
On the other hand, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, ITC, State Bank of India, Tata Steel and Sun Pharma were among the gainers.
In Asian markets, China and Hong Kong closed with losses, while South Korea closed with gains. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday.
European shares were trading mostly in the green during afternoon trade.
US markets closed with a mixed trend on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the rupee strengthened by 15 paise to close at 82.73 (provisional) against the US dollar on Thursday.
International oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.32% to $80.86 a barrel.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 579.82 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.