Sensex falls over 120 points, Nifty down over 50 points in early trade amid US-Iran conflict

Representational Image. File pic.

The domestic equity benchmark indices were trading in the negative territory in the early deals on Tuesday as elevated crude oil prices and renewed US-Iran tensions dampened investor sentiment.

Initial market movement

The 30-share BSE Sensex shed 121.48 points to 76,835.79 in the early trade. The 50-share NSE Nifty slipped 52.6 points to 24,027.80 during the initial trade.

"Overall, we expect the index to extend the recent consolidation and trade in the broad range of 23,800-24,600 amid stock specific action. Within the consolidation last two-week highs placed around 24,380 will be the key hurdle for the index only a move above the same will signal positive movement. Failure to move above the same will keep the bias corrective," Bajaj Broking Research said.

Among the Sensex constituents, ITC, HCL Tech, Bharti Airtel and Infosys were among the gainers. Bajaj Finserv, InterGlobe Aviation, Titan, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finance and Axis Bank were among the major laggards. Shares of InterGlobe Aviation, the parent company of the airlines IndiGo were trading 2.22 per cent lower on the news of Aviation Turbine Fuel hike.

On Monday, the Sensex tanked 307.24 points, or 0.40 per cent, to settle at 76,957.27, while the Nifty lost 95.25 points, or 0.39 per cent, to end at 24,080.40.

Macroeconomic factors

India's June quarter GDP grew at 7.8 per cent, underscoring resilience amid the West Asia crisis.

"The Q1 GDP growth print at 7.8 per cent is reassuring and indicates that we are on track to achieve 7 per cent growth in FY27. Services and secondary sectors growing at 10 per cent and 8.5 per cent respectively reflect a robust economy which can deliver decent earnings growth in FY27. This has the potential to keep the market resilient, but in the near-term the global headwinds from elevated crude and excessive US bond yields might impact the market negatively," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments said.

"The US 10-year bond yield at 4.77 per cent and 30-year yield at 5.24 per cent are negatives for equity markets. Flight of capital to safe US bonds is inevitable in this context. During the last two days FIIs had sold equity for Rs 13025 crores in the cash market," he added.

According to news agency PTI, Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, traded 0.76 per cent higher at USD 91.22 per barrel, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 7,985.88 crore on Monday.

In Asian markets, South Korea's Kospi, Japan's Nikkei 225 index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index quoted lower, while Shanghai's SSE Composite index traded higher.

(With inputs from PTI)