Opening Bell: Markets witness heavy selling in morning trade

On Thursday morning, the benchmark equity indices tanked as the global markets saw a sharp decline since June 2020.

The US equity indices S&P 500 traded 4.04% lower to 3,923.68, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 4.73% to 11,418.15, which is the largest fall in the tech-heavy index since May 5. The selling was broad and intense on Wall Street with just eight members of the S&P 500 in the green.

Markets returned to heavy selling after two back-to-back quarterly reports from Target and Walmart spooked the fear in investors about the rising inflation, high fuel prices, and their effect on the supply of commodities and consumer demand.

The Sensex is trading at 53,174.62, down by 1033.91 points or 1.91 % whereas the Nifty 50 is at 15,938.30, down by 302 points or 1.86%, since the last trading session.

BSE Midcap was trading at 22,275.26, down by 1.75 % and BSE Smallcap was at 25,957.87, down by 1.69%. Similarly, Nifty Midcap 100 was at 27,539.15, down by 2.04 % and the Nifty Smallcap 100 was at 8,976.90, down by 1.98 %.

The only gainers on the frontline indices this morning were Eicher Motors and ITC. Likewise, the top losers were Tech Mahindra, Infosys, IndusInd Bank, TCS, and Wipro.

On the BSE, 1,672 shares have advanced, 1,228 shares have declined and 115 shares are unchanged. Also, 125 stocks have hit their upper circuit and 128 stocks have hit their lower circuit.

The top trending stocks on BSE this morning are Amber Enterprises, BPCL, HDFC AMC HDFC Bank, ITC, Lupin, Mangalore Refinery, and Petrochemical and Wipro.

The shares of Lupin are down by 8.37% after the company declared its Q4 results, whereas shares of ITC are up by 3.17% on the background of strong quarterly results.

All the sectoral indices were trading in the red, with IT, Metal, PSU, and Private Banks taking the most severe blows!