The Indian market closed in the red once again on November 18, extending its losing streak to a seventh consecutive session. This marks the longest losing streak since February 2023, as the bears appear to have a firm grip on the market, leaving little room for the bulls to make a move.
Both the Nifty 50 and Sensex experienced another volatile session, with sharp selling in the IT and metals sectors. The weakness in heavyweight stocks such as Reliance Industries and ICICI Bank further intensified the pressure on the indices, causing them to close at levels not seen since late June.
While there was some support from HDFC Bank and the auto stocks, it wasn’t enough to lift the indices out of the ongoing bearish trend. Consequently, the Nifty 50 closed the session with a decline of 0.34%, settling at 23,453 points. The S&P BSE Sensex closed 110 points, or 0.33%, lower at 77,327.
The broader market showed a mixed picture, with the Nifty Midcap 100 ending the session flat at 54,044, while the Nifty Small Cap index fell by 0.53% to 17,507 points.
Among the sectoral indices, the Nifty IT index experienced a sharp sell-off, tumbling 2.36% amid concerns that the US Fed may delay a rate cut in December due to rising inflation and strong US retail sales data. This was followed by the Nifty Oil & Gas index, which dropped 1.53%, while the Nifty Media, Nifty Pharma, Nifty Energy, and Nifty CPSE indices all declined by over 1%.
On the positive side, the Nifty Metal index gained 1.90%, driven by strong performances from aluminium and copper manufacturers such as National Aluminium Company (NALCO), Hindalco Industries, and Vedanta, driven by China’s finance ministry’s recent proposal to reduce or cancel export tax rebates for commodities, including copper and aluminium, effective December 1.