Market Update

The Indian stock market’s benchmark indices, the Sensex and Nifty 50, pared some early morning losses but continued to trade in the red on Thursday, March 12. The recovery was led by gains in index heavyweight Reliance Industries. However, the indices remained weak tracking weak global cues as a sharp rise in crude oil prices heightened inflation concerns and investors remained cautious amid escalating tensions between the US and Iran in the Middle East. This comes after an around 1.7% fall in the indices in the previous session. Sensex cracked as much as 992.53 points or 1.3% to its day's low of 75,871.18 while the Nifty 50 fell 298.15 points or 1.25% to 23,556.30. Sensex later pared gains, and recovered 600 points to day's high of 76,522.99, sill down around 400 points. Nifty also traded 0.5% lower. Investors' wealth has fallen by a solid ₹14 lakh crore, as the overall market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms dropped to nearly ₹436 lakh crore from nearly ₹450 lakh crore on Friday. Meanwhile, Asian markets traded lower on Thursday, following overnight losses on Wall Street, amid surging crude oil prices and escalating US-Iran war. Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 1.6%, while the Topix fell 1.34%. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.75%. Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures indicated a lower start.