Sensex slumps 215 points on earnings worries, Nifty settles below 7,550; Maruti Suzuki falls

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty slid nearly 1 per cent on Thursday as investors continued to book profit in the recent outperformers ahead of result season which is expected to remain weak. Sentiments also remained under pressure after data showed that foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 493.56 crore on Wednesday. Sensex closed 215 points down at 24,685.42, while Nifty 50 settled 67.90 points down at 7,546.45.

In the 50-share index, BHEL, Coal India, Lupin, Aurobindo Pharma and Dr Reddy’s Labs gained between 0.64 per cent and 3.96 per cent. On the other hand, Tata Power, Adani Power, Maruti Suzuki and Larsen and Toubro slid between 2.61 per cent and 4.15 per cent.

For the financial year ended March 2016, BHEL on Thursday reported net loss of Rs 877 crore (provisional) in FY2015-16 against net profit of Rs 1,419 crore last year.

Next week, cement makers ACC Ltd and Ambuja Cements Ltd, and software services provider Infosys are due to report their earnings results.

“On the earnings front, it’s not like we are going to see a robust turnaround. So from a short to medium-term perspective, for those who have low risk appetite, I think it is prudent to book profits,” said Gaurang Shah, vice president at Geojit BNP Paribas.

Among day’s major market moving events, shares of housing finance major – HDFC Ltd corrected by 3.3% intraday on NSE after company announced that it is going to make an additional provision (one-time) of Rs 450 crores in the March quarter to create an additional buffer for any unexpected risk in the future.

Shares of Maruti Suzuki continued to remain under pressure after a stronger Japanese Yen. Maruti slipped by 2.81 per cent in today’s session owing to cues from Japanese Yen’s strength against the greenback. Its believed that every 1 per cent gain in Yen leads to a 0.2 per cent decline in Maruti’s margins.

Barring the BSE Oil & Gas index and BSE Healthcare index, rest all other sectoral indices on the BSE ended the day in red.

Asian equity markets ended mostly higher on Thursday on surge in oil prices and easing concerns about an April US interest rate increase following cautious comments by policy makers in the US Federal Reserve minutes. Japanese stocks edged up, snapping a seven-day losing streak as buying in defensive stocks offset weakness in exporters which lost ground on the yen’s strength. The yen held at an 18-month high against the dollar after the Fed’s March meeting minutes confirmed the dovish bias of US policymakers. However, China stocks ended lower as investors awaited a slew of Chinese economic data and stayed cautious on signs of increasing default risks in the country’s corporate bond market.