The BSE benchmark Sensex on Monday dropped over 150 points tracking weakness in other Asian markets amid heavy selling by foreign investors.According to analysts, this week, stock market movement will be driven by announcement of macroeconomic data points and quarterly earnings by various companies, including blue chips RIL and Wipro.
The government is scheduled to release wholesale price index and consumer price index data later in the day. Market would also continue taking cues from the movement of rupee, crude oil and investment trend by foreign investors, traders said.
On a net basis, foreign portfolio investors sold shares worth Rs 687.20 crore on Friday, while domestic institutional investors were net buyers of Rs 123.17 crore, provisional data available with BSE showed.
In morning session on Monday, the biggest losers in the Sensex pack were Axis Bank, L&T, Tata Steel, Vedanta, HDFC, M&M, IndusInd Bank, Bharti Airtel, TCS, ICICI Bank, NTPC and SBI, falling up to 1.61 per cent.
Shares of Avenue Supermarts, which runs the D-Mart chain, fell over 8 per cent after the company posted 2.1 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 257 crore for the December 2018 quarter.
On the other hand, Infosys was the biggest gainer, rising 3 per cent, after the company on Friday said it would buy back shares worth up to Rs 8,260 crore and offer shareholders a special dividend of Rs 4 per share as part of the company’s Rs 13,000 crore-capital allocation policy.
India’s second largest IT firm, however, reported a 30 per cent drop in its December quarter net profit on higher expenses. Globally, elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.43 per cent, Kospi fell 0.66 per cent and Shanghai Composite Index was trading 0.56 per cent lower in early trade.
