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Indian equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty50 suffered deep losses on Friday following a gap-down start amid nervourness among investors globally tracking news flow on the Russia-Ukraine war.
The BSE Sensex, which, touched a low of 53,888, was still down around 900-odd points at 54,180 levels, while the NSE Nifty50 was seen testing the 16,200-level, down nearly 300 points.
Barring the metal space, all sectors were deep in the red in early deals. Broader markets also weakned, with the Nifty Midcap 100 and Smallcap 100 indices down more than one percent each.
HDFC twins, SBI Cards, Others Hit 52-Week Lows
Among the stocks hitting 52-week lows Hero MotoCorp, Ashok Leyland, Max Financial, ICICI Lombard, Lupin, City Union Bank, Edelweiss Financial, Shree Cement, Britannia, Motherson, Aarti Drugs, Apollo Tyres, Rane Brakes, AIA Engineering and Indigo Paints.
Key Reasons Driving the Selloff on Friday
Fire At Ukraine’s Nuclear Power Plant
Russian troops attacked Europe’s largest nuclear power plant on Friday, setting part of the Ukrainian facility ablaze in an assault the country’s leader branded “nuclear terror” and said could endanger the continent.
“The war and surge in crude has completely transformed the economic scenario and market expectations. If the war prolongs global economic growth may be impacted. In India, both the government and RBI had assumed crude price of around $75 and, therefore, projections in the budget and monetary policy have to be revised materially. Even if crude price declines and stays around $100, inflation for FY23 will be much higher than RBI’s forecast. MPC will be forced to raise rates and this will impact the economic recovery underway,” said Dr. VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
Geopolitical headwinds spook the market
Geopolitical uncertainities like the higher global inflation and potential rate hikes by the US Fed are keeping investors at the edge. “The Russia-Ukraine conflict has resulted in a global risk-off, with equity markets undergoing intermittent bouts of correction and elevated volatility. The uncertainty over the duration and magnitude of the extant conflict could keep the market jittery
and dependent on news flow,” Motilal Oswal said in its note.
FMCG Sector Sees Slowdown
India’s packaged fast moving consumer goods witnessed volume slowdown in urban markets and de-growth in rural India last year, severely impacted by inflation, NielsenIQ said in its quarterly FMCG update. The FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) sector has been carrying the burden of higher costs of agri-inputs. This is clearly evident in the depressed margins of almost all companies.
In 2021, the sector was hit hard by inflationary pressures, forcing companies to hike prices aggressively in successive quarters and alter their grammage. This resulted in a de-growth in rural areas and slowdown in urban markets.
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