Stock market today: Sensex slips 200 points, Nifty below 22,220 following Asian peers

Stock market today: BSE Sensex and NSE’s Nifty 50 opened in red with Sensex trading 171 points or 0.35 per cent lower while the Nifty 50 opened below 22,220 with a 0.38 per cent or 84 points lower. 

As of 09:17 am on May 8, Sensex was trading at 73,205.53, down by 0.5 per cent and Nifty was trading at Rs 22,198.10, down by 104 points. 

BPCL, Coal India, Maruti, Adani Enterprises, Tata Stee, ONGC, and NTPC were some of the top gainers on Nifty 50. 

While Dr Reddy, Asian Paints, L&T, IndusInd Bank, Apollo Hospitals, and Hero Moto Corp were biggest losers of the day by 9:45 am this morning. 

Gift Nifty, an indicator of the Indian stock market, were trading 33 points or 0.15 per cent down at 22,372. At the market opening, all Nifty indices were trading in red except media, metal, and PSU indexes. 

Over the past two days, benchmarks have relinquished early gains to end lower amidst election uncertainty and sustained foreign investor selling. The market sentiment today is worse than the last two openings and the market is facing downward pressure. 

The shares of Dr Reddy’s Labs, which announced its earnings yesterday, were trading at Rs 5,997.40, down by 4.18 per cent. Despite the pharma major recording a net profit of Rs 1,307 crore in the last quarter of the financial year 2023-24, an increase of 36.3 per cent on the year, it failed to beat the street estimates. 

A substantial selling sentiment could be seen in Voltas stocks that were trading at Rs 1,269, down by 8.54 per cent. Voltas reported a dip of 19 per cent in consolidated net profit at Rs 116.44 crore, compared to Rs 143.92 crore in the corresponding period last year.

JSW Energy, on March 7, reported a 29 per cent rise in its consolidated net profit to Rs 351 crore in the March quarter compared to a year ago mainly on the back of higher revenues. The shares of the Sajjan Jindal-led power company were trading 30.55 points or 5.23 per cent higher at Rs 614.40. 

Pidilite Industries shares were trading 157.70 points or 5.34 per cent higher at 2,793.15 after the construction chemicals manufacturer on Tuesday reported a 6.4 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase in net profit at Rs 304.3 crore for Q4FY24. 

The street will be closely watching the shares of the companies about to release their Q4 earnings on Wednesday. Canara Bank, Hero Motocorp, Larsen & Toubro, Bharat Forge, Godrej Agrovet, Sula Vineyards, TVS Motor, and other industry leaders will be releasing their quarterly result on the May 8.