Market Opening Bell: Indices open flat, NIFTY50 holds 24,400 mark, SENSEX down 80 pts; pharma stocks tumble

The Indian stock market on Tuesday, May 6, opened a gap down amid geopolitical tensions and global cues. Investors also remained cautious ahead of India's Services PMI data for April, set to be released today.

The market remained in favour of negative as 1,407 stocks declined out of 2,289 traded in the early session.

The broader market also remained under pressure as both midcap and smallcap indices opened lower.

Among sectors, Nifty Pharma, Consumer Durables and Realty were the most losing ones, while Nifty Auto was the top performer, gaining 0.88%.

On the global front, Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump said that he had no plans to talk to his Chinese counterpart this week.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was trading up 0.86%, and the Shanghai Composite also gained 0.94%. Singapore’s Straits Times was trading 0.13% higher.

Trading remained closed in Japan and South Korea markets on Tuesday.

The US markets ended in red on Monday after President Donald Trump announced plans to impose a 100% tariff on movies produced in foreign countries. Investors also remained cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decision later this week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 98.60 points, or 0.24%, to 41,218.83, the S&P 500 slipped 36.29 points, or 0.64%, to 5,650.38 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 133.49 points, or 0.74%, to 17,844.24.

As many as 2,357 stocks traded on the NSE during the early session, among which 1,495 stocks were trading in the green, only 797 in the red and 65 shares remained unchanged.

This indicated that the market breadth was in favour of declines.

Meanwhile, only 14 stocks hit their one-year highs in the early trade, while 15 stocks touched their 52-week lows.

Further, 18 stocks hit their lower circuits while 22 hit their upper circuits.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was trading 1.28% higher at 18.57 levels.

Cipla was the most losing stock on the NIFTY50 index, falling 2.16%. Jio Financial Services (-1.84%), Dr Reddy’s (-1.62%), Titan (-1.49%) and Sun Pharma (-1.16%).

On the other hand, Mahindra & Mahindra (3.76%) was the top gainer, followed by Hero MotorCorp (2.64%), Bharti Airtel (2.02%), Eicher Motors (1.21%) and ONGC (1.20%).

The company had informed about the meeting last month. The automaker said on April 4 that the meeting will be held via “video conferencing (VC) and other audio visual means (OAVM)” to deliberate and approve splitting Tata Motors into two separate entities.

The company had set March 28 as the cut -off date for the demerger. This means anyone who bought Tata Motors shares after March 28 will not be entitled to exercise their voting rights on the split.

The company reported a net profit of ₹522 crore in January-March quarter, marking an upside of 25% from ₹418 crore in the same period last year. Its revenue from operations rose 27% to ₹2,487 crore as against ₹1,951 crore in the year-ago period. Analysts on an average were expecting the company to report net profit of ₹550 crore.

The stock advanced 6.36% to ₹7,9373.5 apiece on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) at 9:17 am.

Coforge reported a consolidated net profit of ₹261.2 crore in the March quarter, up 16.76% from ₹223.7 crore a year back, according to an exchange filing.

Revenue from operations for the reporting quarter rose 47% to ₹3,410 crore, compared to ₹2,318 crore in the year-ago period.