Indian stock indices start fresh week in red, Sensex slips nearly 300 pts

New Delhi: Snapping three-day gains, Indian stock indices declined in early trade on Monday. At 9.30 a.m., Sensex was trading at 54,193.15 points, down 288.69 points or 0.53 per cent, whereas was at 16,141.95 points, down 78.65 points or 0.48 per cent.

Among the individual stocks, Bharti Airtel, TCS, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, and Wipro were the top five losers among the Nifty 50 companies, while NTPC, M&M, ONGC, Eicher Motors, and Tata Consumers were the top five gainers, National Stock Exchange data showed.

“Some stock specific actions can be seen in Tata Consultancy Services and Avenue Supermarts which declared its Q1FY23 results on Friday post market hours. The IT giant posted a 16% rise in revenue while witnessing a shrink in margins on a sequential and yearly basis on the back of annual wage hike cycle and increase in attrition rate,” said Mohit Nigam, Head – PMS, Hem Securities.

At 9.27 a.m., TCS traded at 4.4 per cent lower from Friday’s closing at Rs 3,121 per share.

The attrition rate in the Indian IT services major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) was at 19. 7 per cent in the past twelve months.

For fresh cues, investors would await inflation data for the month of June, which is due later this week.

“The sharp decline in prices of commodities, particularly of crude, metals, wheat and edible oil augurs well for inflation management in India. This means, RBI can afford to go a bit slow on hiking interest rates in India. This positive trend is likely to keep the domestic equity market resilient,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

“The market texture reflects a change in investment strategy from sell on rallies in June to buy on dips in July. Segments like capital goods, autos and high-quality financials indicate strength,” Vijayakumar added.