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Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty tumbled on Friday as investors booked profits amid weak global markets.
Markets plunged in the last hour of trade due to weak global cues and reports of online businesses in several countries, including India, hit by cyber outages.
The Sensex declined by 738 points or 0.91 per cent to settle at 80,604. The Nifty dropped by 269 points or 1.1 per cent to end at 24,530.
Losers and gainers
Tata Steel and Reliance Industries spearheaded the decline. Infosys gained nearly 2 per cent after reporting a 7 per cent rise in net profit and raising its growth outlook. Other gainers included ITC, Asian Paints, and HCL Technologies. The IT index gained amid Q1FY25 earnings, while the BSE Capital Goods, Metals, and Commodity indices faced profit booking.
Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said, “The domestic market closed today with a downturn due to the global sell-off, triggered by operating system issues that caused devices to crash worldwide. The global IT outage has led to disruptions in various Indian industries. The overvalued market is also experiencing profit booking ahead of the budget next week. The recent performance has been bullish in anticipation of pro-industry and populist measures.”
Most Asian indices were down on Friday amid persistent concerns over a renewed trade war between the US and China and as signs of economic weakness outweighed market optimism surrounding interest-rate cuts. European shares fell, impacted by lower commodity prices and as a collapse in global technology shares weighed, even as airlines, media companies, banks and telecoms firms around the world said system outages were disrupting their operations.
Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research at Kotak Securities, said: “Markets responded to global developments, Q1FY25 earnings, and commentary from large IT services. Investors are positioning for the upcoming FY25 budget, a key event next week. Stock-specific actions will continue as the Q1FY25 result season unfolds, with attention also on the upcoming FOMC meeting.”
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