Share Market Opens Lower; Metal Stocks Drag Indices

Indian equity markets traded lower on Tuesday morning amid volatility linked to the Nifty weekly expiry and weakness in metal stocks. At 9:30 am, the Sensex was down 232 points, or 0.28 per cent, at 83,044, while the Nifty declined 92 points, or 0.36 per cent, to 25,590.

Broader markets mirrored the benchmark trend, with the Nifty Midcap 100 falling 0.28% and the Nifty Smallcap 100 slipping 0.05%. Sectorally, most indices traded in the red except Nifty IT, FMCG and PSU Bank. Nifty Metal emerged as the biggest loser, down 1.35 per cent, while IT led gains with a 1.08 per cent rise.

Market watchers said the immediate support for the Nifty is located in the 25,550–25,500 zone, while resistance is seen between 25,700 and 25,800.

Bank Nifty continued to show relative resilience, with immediate support in the 60,500–60,400 range, aligning with prior breakout and trendline levels. On the upside, resistance is pegged near 61,000.

Analysts noted that robust domestic institutional investor (DII) inflows are providing a cushion against intermittent foreign institutional investor (FII) outflows. However, sentiment remains cautious due to persistent weakness in IT stocks on AI-disruption concerns, selective profit booking, and mixed global cues.

Markets are likely to remain range-bound until fresh domestic or global triggers emerge.

Global Cues And Institutional Flows

Despite a recent sell-off in capital market-related stocks following tighter RBI lending norms for proprietary traders and brokers, markets had closed higher in the previous session. Analysts attributed this resilience to improving macroeconomic fundamentals and a stronger-than-expected 14.7 per cent growth in Q3 corporate earnings.

In Asia, Shanghai fell 1.26 per cent, Shenzhen declined 1.28 per cent, Japan’s Nikkei dropped 1.09 per cent, South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.28 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.52 per cent. US markets were closed overnight for a Federal holiday but ended mostly higher in the prior session.

On February 16, FIIs net sold equities worth Rs 972 crore, while DIIs net bought Rs 1,667 crore.