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Sensex and Nifty remained muted throughout the session to end flat on October 24
Sensex Today
Stock Market Updates: Sensex and Nifty remained muted throughout the session to end flat on October 24. While FMCG and IT stocks dragged down Nifty, financial names provided some support.
At close, the Sensex was up 13.43 points or 0.02 percent at 80,095.41, and the Nifty was down 20.00 points or 0.08 percent at 24,415.50. About 1,456 shares rose, 2,172 fell, and 86 were unchanged.
Several headwinds have been weighing on market sentiment—disappointing Q2 earnings, relentless selling by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, uncertainty over the pace of US interest rate cuts, the looming US election, and surging US bond yields.
Nifty Midcap100, and Nifty Smallcap100 indices ended down by 0.33 per cent, and 0.20 per cent respectively.
The Nifty PSU Bank index outperformed the other sectoral indices with gains of 1.22 per cent, followed by Bank Nifty, Private Bank, Financial Services, and Healthcare indices.
Nifty FMCG index ended lower by 2.83 per cent, dragged by Hindustan Unilever, Colgate Palmolive, and Marico. Nifty Realty, IT, Media, Metal, and Consumer Durables indices also ended in red on Thursday.
Market view by Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services, said: “The major headwind that the market is facing now is the massive, unprecedented and sustained FII selling which has touched Rs 93088 crores through 23rd October, as per NSDL data. The fundamental trigger for the FII outflows is the elevated valuations in India and the relatively cheap and attractive valuations in markets like China and Hong Kong.”
Global Cues
Meanwhile, markets in the Asia-Pacific region were mixed on Thursday morning after the overnight decline in US stocks on on Wall Street.
South Korea’s Kospi was down 0.37 per cent after the country’s third-quarter GDP growth came in at 0.1 per cent quarter on quarter, missing Reuters’ estimates of 0.5 per cent growth, and following a 0.2 per cent decline in the second quarter.
The small-cap Kosdaq declined 1.08 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.48 per cent, while the Topix was up marginally.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.14 per cent.
On Wall Street, all the three main indices finished lower, driven by losses in consumer discretionary, technology and communication services stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.96 per cent to 42,514.95, the S&P 500 fell 0.92 per cent to 5,797.42 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.60 per cent to 18,276.65.
