Peace talks in limbo, crude rise hits D-St, sensex slides

MUMBAI: With Brent crude hovering over $103/barrel and rupee below 94-to-a-dollar, sensex slid over 852 points (1.1%) on Thursday to 77, 664 points. Foreign funds were aggressive sellers with the net outflow at Rs 3, 255 crore, their biggest single-session net sell-off in two weeks, BSE and NSDL data showed.

The fluid nature of the second round of peace talks between the US and Iran took its toll on markets globally. The continuing naval blockades in and around Persian Gulf, and Iran’s seizure of two ships kept risk sentiment fragile, market players said.

Due to the global risk-off sentiment, sensex opened slightly more than 500 points down, regained some lost ground to over the 78.1K mark but then in late sell-off slid to an intra-day low at 77, 574 points and closed a tad off that mark. On NSE, Nifty, too, followed a similar path to close at 24, 173 points, down by 205 points.

According to Ankur Punj, MD & business head, Equirus Wealth, domestic markets fell sharply as weak global cues pushed local investors to cut their exposure in banking, IT, auto and realty stocks. “There is no clarity on peace talks between the US and Iran, which has led to renewed uptick in global crude prices.

“With rupee on the boil, breaching the 94-per-dollar mark and the continuing (foreign) fund outflows from the domestic equities, there will be a lot of pessimism in the near term.”

It was the fourth consecutive session for the rupee to weaken against the dollar. This was the first time this month that the rupee closed below the 94 mark.

Due to the sell-off, investors were left poorer by a little over Rs 3 lakh crore with BSE’s market capitalisation now at Rs 466.4 lakh crore, official data showed.

The day’s slide in the sensex came on the back of sharp selling in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries. On the other hand, some buying in stocks like L&T and Bharti Airtel cushioned the fall, but only marginally, BSE data showed.

Rupee down 30p, closes 94.1 to a dollar

The rupee breached the 94 mark to close at 94.1 on Thursday, down about 30 paise from its previous close of 93.8, after touching an intra-day low of 94.39 per US dollar. The currency has now fallen for four consecutive sessions and is down over 1% so far this week. The weakness has been driven by a roughly 15% surge in crude prices, with oil trading above $100 per barrel.
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