Sensex retreats 900 points, Nifty down 1.21% amid global sell-off

Closing bell: The domestic stock market indices faced a tailspin slump on Friday as Auto and IT stock pulled the markets down by over a per cent. The negative sentiment in the market was buoyed by feeble market sentiments globally amid concerns about slowing economic and manufacturing growth. 

Indian markets remained nervous throughout the day after a frail start with over a per cent fall in the early trading minutes. 

In the week's last trading session, the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (Sensex) fell as much as 900 points, whereas the broader NSE Nifty 50 plunged nearly 300 points. 

BSE’s Sensex settled at 80,981.95, down by 1.08 per cent or 885.60 points while Nifty 50 recorded 293.20 points or 1.17 per cent decline, closing at 24,717.70. 

The signals of global market meltdown could be felt across sectors in domestic bourses on Friday led by maximum impact real estate and auto stocks. NSE’s Nifty Real Estate index fell as much as 3.57 per cent as Brigade Enterprises, Phoenix Limited, Godrej Properties, and DLF shrugged off nearly 4 per cent each. 

HDFC Bank, Sun Pharma, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Nestle India were among the few in the S&P BSE Sensex which ended marginally up. 

However, Zomato remained in focus in today’s trade as the stock of the food delivery platform skyrocketed after it reported more than 100 times growth in its profit for the first quarter of FY25. The stock of Deepinder Goyal-led company surged as much as 18.9 per cent in intraday trade to hit the day’s high of 278.45 apiece. 

On the other hand, the auto stocks plunged 2.92 per cent led by strong losses in Eicher Motors, Tata Motors, and Maruti Suzuki which disappointed Dalal Street with a weaker monthly sales figure reported on August 1. Eicher Motors settled 5.15 per cent lower whereas Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki registered 4.85 per cent and 4.06 per cent decline amid today’s rout. 

Metal stocks were also among the top laggards for the day as Nifty Metal fell as much as 2.7 per cent along with Nifty IT which slumped by 2.41 per cent. However, after a dwindling performance on Thursday’s trading session Pharma and Healthcare were the only indices that ended in green. 

Talking about today's market move, VLA Ambala, Research Analyst, Stock Market Today, said, “The current market is heavily influenced by broader sentiments and high liquidity inflows from domestic hands. Amid this situation and high valuations, the overall market trend remains bullish, as seen by the weekly and monthly RSI readings of over 75. However, on the daily timeframe, the reading seems to have cooled down and is currently trading at 60, with a price of around 24,720.”