Mid-day Mood | Indices off the day's low; metals, PSU banks bleed with most sectors in red

Stock market today

The Indian equity market extended its losses for the third day in a row, with most sectors struggling in the red as of August 14 afternoon. Weak cues from global markets also aided the downturn.

The weakness across equities also weighed on the currency market as the rupee opened at its lowest level in 10 months on August 14.

"Weak Asian market cues, coupled with concerns that China slipping into stagflation amid slackening demand is making investors jittery and prompting them to offload in domestic equities. With FII flows turning choppy this month so far, markets are struggling to maintain the upward bias amid rise in intra-day volatile trades," said Amol Athawale, Vice-President for Technical Research at Kotak Securities.

Following a lower open, both the benchmarks had slipped to their day's lows of 64,821.88 points and 19,257.90 points. However, value buying at the lowest levels helped the benchmarks come off their lows. Likewise, at 12.55pm, the Sensex was down 192.86 points or 0.30 percent at 65,129.79, and the Nifty was down 72.80 points or 0.37 percent at 19,355.50.

Athawale also expects the weak texture to continue for Nifty50 towards 19,300-19,250 as long as the index trades below 19,560. "On the flip side, above 19,560, the chances of hitting 19,670-19,700 levels are bright," he said.

Nifty PSU banks and Nifty metals remained under pressure as they tanked 1.4 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively. Other sectors such as automobiles, banks, infra, pharma and energy edged 0.1-0.9 percent lower.

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The spotlight was also on the Adani Group stocks that witnessed a sell-off after Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP resigned as the statutory auditor to the conglomerate's flagship Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone.

All 10 Adani Group stocks fell 2-4 percent in trade, with the flagship Adani Enterprises and Adani Ports taking the biggest hit. The two stocks were also down around 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively, to be a part of the worst hit Nifty50 stocks.

On the other hand, dancing in the spotlight was PVR-Inox, which surged over 4 percent after the multiplex chain reported its highest-ever daily and weekend admissions and box office collections amid the release of blockbuster movies like Gadar 2 and Oh My God 2.

The overall market breadth was also weak as declines outnumbered advances. Around 1,222 shares traded highrer, 1,966 fell, and 118 were unchanged. Within the broader market, the Nifty Smallcap and Nifty Midcap indices were also down around 1 percent and 0.6 percent.

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