Sensex trades lower as RIL and ICICI Bank drag

Mumbai, Aug 12 (IANS) Indian stock indices opened lower on Monday as heavyweights like RIL and ICICI Bank emerged as the top losers in the morning trade.

At 9:48 a.m., Sensex was down 325 points or 0.41 per cent at 79,353 and Nifty was down 115 points or 0.47 per cent at 24,253.

The market trend remains negative. On the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 1,078 shares were trading in the green, while 1,892 shares were in the red.

Selling is being seen in midcap and smallcap stocks. Nifty Midcap 100 index is down 159 points or 0.28 per cent at 57,105 and Nifty Smallcap is down marginally by 16 points at 18,394.

In the evening, the Centre will release retail inflation figures for July and industrial production figures for June.

Among the sectoral indices, apart from realty, all other indices were trading in the red. Auto, IT, PSU bank, metal, media and energy are major laggards.

In the Sensex pack, Asian Paints, JSW Steel, Tata Motors, Tech Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Sun Pharma, Maruti Suzuki and Infosys are top gainers. NTPC, Power Grid, SBI, ICICI Bank, RIL, Nestle, HCL Tech and TCS are the top losers.

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) turned net buyers as they bought equities worth Rs 406 crore on August 9, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 3979 crore on the same day.

Mixed trading is taking place in Asian markets. Tokyo, Bangkok, Seoul and Hong Kong are in the green while Shanghai and Jakarta are in the red. US markets closed in the green on Friday. Crude oil benchmark Brent crude is at $79.79 per barrel and WTI crude is at $77.09 per barrel.

According to market experts, "Global as well as domestic factors are likely to influence the market this week. Globally stock markets will be keenly watching the US consumer data and the core CPI numbers which will indicate the strength/weakness of the US economy."

"It appears that the Hindenburg report is unlikely to impact the market meaningfully. The buy-on-dips strategy, which has been working well in this bull run, is likely to work again," they added.

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