Tech-Led global selloff, Fed rate fears weigh on Indian equities

Mumbai: India's benchmark indices recorded their steepest single-day fall in nearly a month on Tuesday, mirroring a broad selloff across Asian markets as weakness in global technology and semiconductor stocks weighed on investor sentiment.

Strength in the US dollar on expectations that the US Fed may tilt towards interest rate hikes to combat inflation also kept the market under pressureThe NSE Nifty 50 fell 1.2%, or 278.80 points, to close at 23,824.10, while the BSE Sensex declined 1.2%, or 893.39 points, to end at 76,200.68.South Korea's Kospi tumbled 10% on Tuesday, triggering market-wide circuit breakers, led by a selloff in chipmaker stocks on concerns that the rally had become overheated.

Japan fell 3.6%, while China and Taiwan declined about 1.4% each.

Hong Kong dropped 1.8%.

"The global sell-off in tech stocks coinciding with the weekly expiry added to the volatility," said Sriram Velayudhan, senior vice-president, IIFL Capital Services.

"After the decent move seen over the past few weeks, market participants would have preferred taking profits."South Korea and Taiwan have been Asia's best-performing markets so far this year, driven by the rally in the AI-linked stocks-the hot favourite of investors worldwide.131952281At home, except for pharma and healthcare, all sectoral indices ended lower.

The Nifty Metal index slid 3.2%, while the Nifty PSU Bank and IT indices fell around 2% each.

Bank Nifty declined 1.3%.Foreign portfolio investors bought shares worth a net ₹17.9 crore on Tuesday, while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth ₹680.2 crore.

So far in June, foreign investors have sold shares worth ₹34,272.8 crore.The Nifty Midcap 150 and Nifty Smallcap 250 indices declined 1% and 0.6%, respectively.

Over the past week, the two indices have gained 2.2% and 5.7%, respectively.

Out of 4,447 shares traded on the BSE on Tuesday, 1,497 advanced, and 2,790 declined.The India VIX volatility index jumped 8.6% to 13.9, signalling higher risk conditions in the near term.

"The bias was negative on Tuesday amid a sharp decline in the South Korean market, but Nifty remained in the range of 23,800-24,240 levels, so no major decline is anticipated until it breaches the lower band," said Vipin Kumar, AVP - derivatives and technical research at Globe Capital Market.

If the index breaks below 23,800, the selloff could intensify, he said.

"The derivative data indicates that options are slightly oversold and could rebound to 24,000," said Kumar.

"The positional bias remains sideways in the near term," he said. ...