Market Wrap, Oct 8: NIFTY50 ends at 25,046, SENSEX down 153 points; IT stocks shine; Tata Motors leads losses  

The Indian stock market snapped its four-day winning streak and closed lower on Wednesday, October 8, mirroring global cues and dragged by auto and realty sectors.

The market investors remain cautious ahead of the start of the July–September quarterly earnings season.  IT major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will kickstart the second quarter earnings season on Thursday, October 9.

Despite weak market sentiment, IT stocks stood out on Wednesday, with Nifty IT rising 1.51%, led by gains in Infosys (2.3%), TCS (1.94%), and Coforge (1.36%).

According to exchange data, on Tuesday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought equities worth ₹1,440.66 crore on a net basis, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) purchased ₹452.57 crore worth of equities.

Globally, Asian stocks mostly traded lower on Wednesday, following Wall Street’s first decline in eight days, as a losing streak continued amid gold rallying to a record high.

Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.21%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.51%, while Singapore's Straits Times fell 0.36%.

On Wall Street, indices ended lower as investors tracked political developments in France and Japan, along with concerns over a potential US government shutdown, even as gold futures surged past $4,000 an ounce for the first time.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 91.99 points, or 0.20%, to 46,602.98; the S&P 500 declined 25.69 points, or 0.38%, to close at 6,714.59; and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 153 points, or 0.67%.

As many as 3,207 stocks traded on the NSE on Wednesday. Out of this, 1,250 advanced and 1,864 stocks declined, while 93 scrips remained unchanged.

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

A total of 98 stocks hit their 52-week highs, while 94 stocks touched their one-year lows. Besides, 103 stocks hit their upper circuit limits, and 51 touched their lower circuit bands on Wednesday.

The market capitalisation of NSE-listed firms stood at ₹455.49 lakh crore at the close of the session, marking a decline of ₹2.23 lakh crore from the previous day.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, stood at 10.31 levels, rising 2.61%.

Except for Nifty IT (1.51%) and Nifty Consumer Durables (0.71%), all other sectoral indices closed lower on Wednesday. The biggest drags were Nifty Realty (-1.83%), Nifty Media (-1.71%), Nifty Auto (-1.53%), Nifty Oil & Gas (-0.88%), and Nifty PSU Bank (-0.80%).

The Nifty Smallcap 100 index tumbled 0.52% to end at 17,890.60 levels, while the Nifty Midcap 100 index closed at the 57,866.75 level, losing 0.73%.

On the NIFTY50 index, 13 stocks closed higher, 36 declined, and one remained unchanged by the end of the session.

Tata Motors was the biggest laggard, declining 2.54%, followed by Mahindra & Mahindra (-1.94%), Jio Financial Services (-1.68%), UltraTech Cement (-1.67%) and Bharat Electronics (-1.63%).

On the flip side, Titan Company (4.29%), Infosys (2.3%), TCS (1.94%), HCL Technologies (1.33%) and Tech Mahindra (1.2%) were the biggest gainers on the 50-share index.