Domestic benchmark indices opened flat on Wednesday as selling was seen in auto, PSU bank, financial service, pharma and metal sectors on Nifty.
At around 9:35 am, Sensex was trading at 78,054.12 after declining 84.89 points or 0.11 per cent, while the Nifty was trading at 23,617.55 after declining 27.25 points or 0.12 per cent.
The market trend remained positive. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 1,538 stocks were trading in green, while 621 stocks were in red.
Market experts said the New Year began on a sombre note for the Indian equity market.
"The near-term trend appears weak with the macro construct dominated by weak GDP and earnings growth," they added.
Nifty Bank was down 46.65 points or 0.09 per cent at 50,813.55. Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 57,270.40 after rising 70.95 points or 0.12 per cent. Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 18,831.55 after rising 62.35 points or 0.33 per cent.
On Nifty, sectoral buying was seen in IT, FMCG, Media, and Energy sectors.
In the Sensex pack, Axis Bank (NS:AXBK), ICICI Bank (NS:ICBK), IndusInd Bank (NS:INBK), Tata Steel (NS:TISC), SBI (NS:SBI), Nestle (NS:NEST) India, Tata Motors (NS:TAMO), M&M (NS:MAHM) and Maruti Suzuki (NS:MRTI) were among the top losers. Sun Pharma (NS:SUN), Asian Paints (NS:ASPN), Bajaj Finserv (NS:BJFS), L&T, TCS (NS:TCS), Tech Mahindra (NS:TEML), HCL Tech (NS:HCLT) and UltraTech Cement (NS:ULTC) were among the top gainers.
The Dow Jones fell 0.07 percent to close at 42,544.22. S&P 500 declined 0.43 percent to 5,881.60 and Nasdaq declined 0.90 percent to close at 19,310.79 in the last trading session.
Asian marketsJakarta and Hong Kong are trading in green, whereas China, Bangkok, Seoul and Japan are trading in red.
The headwinds from a strong dollar (dollar index is at 108.5 per cent) and high U.S. bond yields will impact the market through more FII selling, at least in the early days of 2025.
"Even though FII selling is matched by DII buying, in this tug of war, in the near-term, sentiments are on the side of FIIs since valuations continue to be elevated," said experts.
Experts said investors should be careful and look out for any macro data that could be market moving.
Foreign institutional investors sold equities worth Rs 4,645.22 crore on December 31, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 4,546.73 crore on the same day.
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