Mumbai: The Indian benchmark indices began slightly lower on Tuesday, despite progress on the US shutdown bill and confidence that an India-US trade agreement could be reached shortly.
As of 9.25 a.m., the Sensex was down 177 points, or 0.21 percent, at 85,338, while the Nifty fell 51 points, or 0.20 percent, to 25,523.
The broadcap indices outperformed their benchmarks, with the Nifty Midcap 100 down only 0.09 percent and the Nifty Smallcap 100 down 0.06 percent.
TCS, Tech Mahindra, and Dr Reddy’s Labs were among the Nifty Pack’s top gainers, while Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Shriram Finance, and Asian Paints were among the losers.
The sectoral indexes were mixed, with the majority of them trading with a modest negative skew. Nifty IT was the outstanding gainer, up 0.31 percent, while financial services, FMCG, Pharma, and PSU Bank fell 0.71, 0.49, 0.16, and 0.57 percent, respectively.
“Nasdaq bounced back 2.2 per cent after the AI trade was weak last week. The return from AI stocks may take longer than expected, but there is no bubble in AI stocks, unlike the Tech bubble that crashed in 2000,” said market watchers.
They stated that the Nasdaq PE was above 70 and many tech stocks were above 150 in March 2000, and AI stock PE valuations presently range from 28 to 51, while the Nasdaq PE is 32.
The majority of Asia-Pacific markets surged in early trade on Tuesday, matching Wall Street’s advances on renewed optimism about artificial intelligence equities.
The US markets ended in the green zone overnight, with the Nasdaq up 2.27 percent, the S&P 500 up 1.54 percent, and the Dow up 0.81 percent.
In Asian markets, China’s Shanghai index fell 0.46 percent, Shenzhen down 0.67 percent, Japan’s Nikkei increased 0.43 percent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.29 percent. South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.38 percent.
On Monday, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 4,889 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) purchased equities worth Rs 1,787 crore.
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Photo: Nitin Lawate/IANS
–IANS
