The key equity benchmarks managed to pare some losses as they came off the day's low in early afternoon trade. The Nifty, however, continued to trade below the 17,950 mark. Metal shares witnessed sharp selling for third day in a row.
At 12:29 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 633.98 points or 1.04% to 60,192.24. The Nifty 50 index lost 203.20 points or 1.12% to 17,924.15.
The broader market underperformed the headline indices. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 2.35% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index slipped 2.92%.
Sellers outnumbered buyers. On the BSE, 446 shares rose and 3037 shares fell. A total of 94 shares were unchanged.
Derivatives:
The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of the market's expectation of volatility over the near term, rose 3.6% to 15.74. The Nifty 29 December 2022 futures were trading at 17,975.95, at a premium of 51.8 points as compared with the spot at 17,924.15.
The Nifty option chain for the 29 December 2022 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 105.8 lakh contracts at the 18,200 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 74.8 lakh contracts were seen at 18,000 strike price.
Buzzing Index:
The Nifty Metal index declined 2.86% to 6,332.50. The index has tumbled 6.19% in three sessions.
Hindustan Copper (down 4.47%), Adani Enterprises (down 3.99%), National Aluminium Company (down 3.97%), Vedanta (down 3.67%) and Tata Steel (down 3.62%) were the top losers.
Among the other losers were Steel Authority of India (down 3.62%), Hindalco Industries (down 3.39%), MOIL (down 2.69%), Hindustan Zinc (down 2.19%) and Welspun Corp (down 2.15%).
Stocks in Spotlight:
Spandana Sphoorty Financial fell 2.13%. The microfinancier said that the company has received a binding bid from an ARC, amounting to Rs 95 crore, for the written-off portfolio with outstanding of Rs 323.08 crore as on 30 September 2022.
Indus Towers shed 0.75%. The company said that its board has appointed Prachur Sah as an additional director as well as managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of the company with effect from 3 January 2023, for a period of five years.
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