Indian share market opens flat, Nifty above 23,700

Mumbai: The Indian stock market opened flat on Tuesday amid positive global cues.

At around 9:28 am, Sensex was trading at 78,588.23 after gaining 48.06 points or 0.06 per cent, while the Nifty was trading at 23,766.30 after gaining 12.85 points or 0.05 per cent.

The market trend remained positive. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 1,302 stocks were trading in green, while 877 stocks were in red.

According to experts, the relief rally witnessed yesterday is unlikely to have a free run up in the coming days.

“Two sets of factors- external and internal- will restrain a sustained rally. Externally, the strong dollar and high bond yields in the US will prompt the FIIs to sell on rallies. Internally, the growth and earnings slowdown will be near-term negatives that will restrain the bulls.” They noted.

Nifty Bank was down 80.55 points or 0.16 per cent at 51,237.05. Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 57,016.10 after dropping 76.80 points or 0.13 per cent. Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 18,660.65 after dropping 27.15 points or 0.15 per cent.

On the sectoral front, buying was seen in the auto, IT, FMCG and PSU bank sectors. Whereas, selling was seen in the financial services, pharma, metal and energy sectors.

In the Sensex pack, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, TCS, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank, Infosys, ICICI Bank, L&T, Asian Paints, Maruti and SBI were the top gainers. Whereas, Zomato, Power Grid, Titan, NTPC, UltraTech Cement and IndusInd Bank were the top losers.

The Dow Jones closed in the last trading session at 42,906.95 after gaining 0.16 per cent. The S&P 500 added 0.73 per cent to 5,974.07 and the Nasdaq gained 0.98 per cent to close at 19,764.88.

In the Asian markets, except Seoul and Japan the markets of Hong Kong, China, Jakarta and Bangkok were trading in green.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 168.71 crore on December 23, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 2,227.68 crore on the same day.