"The persistent selling by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) means that liquidity is going away from markets. Without liquidity and positive triggers, markets are not going to rise in a hurry," said Avinash Gorakshakar, head of research at Profitmart Securities.
FIIs have remained net sellers in Indian equities in 2023 so far, offloading 48.06 billion rupees ($580.56 million)in the first half of February and 288.52 billion rupees in January.
Nine of the 13 sectoral indexes declined. Metal stocks tumbled nearly 3% with 14 of the 15 constituents logging losses.
"Metals are under pressure due to a rise in the dollar index as commodities have an inverse proportionality to the dollar," said Astha Jain, senior research analyst at Hem Securities. The dollar index, which measures the safe-haven greenback against six peers, hovered near a two-month high of 104.78. Wall Street equities ended positively, with the S&P 500 snapping a four-session losing streak, even as weekly jobs data heightened chances of the Federal Reserve continuing with its tight monetary policy stance. Among individual stocks, Adani Enterprises fell nearly 6% and was the top Nifty 50 loser. "Investors are unwilling to touch Adani group stocks as there is no surety that the companies will bounce back," Gorakshakar said. Hindalco , JSW Steel , Tata Steel were among the other top losers. ($1 = 82.7825 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; editing by Eileen Soreng and Janane Venkatraman)
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