The domestic equity benchmarks continued to witness moderate losses during morning trade, weighed down by renewed concerns over potential changes to U.S. H-1B visa regulations. Investor sentiment remained subdued, with broad-based selling pressure persisting across sectors. The impact of sustained foreign institutional outflows further dampened hopes of a festive-season demand revival.
The Nifty hovered around the 25,100 mark. IT shares extended losses for the fourth consecutive trading session.
At 10:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, slipped 237.63 points or 0.29% to 81,864.47. The Nifty 50 index lost 71 points or 0.29% to 25,098.50.
In the broader market, The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index declined 0.12% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index added 0.21%.
The market breadth was positive. On the BSE, 1,898 shares rose and 1,740 shares fell. A total of 229 shares were unchanged.
New Listing:
Shares of VMS TMT were currently trading at Rs 105 at 10:00 IST on the BSE, representing a premium of 6.06% compared with the issue price of Rs 99.
The scrip was listed at Rs 105, reflecting a premium of 6.06% to the issue price.
So far, the stock has hit a high of Rs 105 and a low of Rs 100. On the BSE, over 1.90 lakh shares of the company were traded in the counter so far.
Buzzing Index:
The Nifty IT index dropped 0.78% to 34,974.30. The index fell 4.83% in the four consecutive trading sessions.
Coforge (down 1.95%), Mphasis (down 1.66%), Tech Mahindra (down 1.59%), Persistent Systems (down 1.56%), Wipro (down 1.05%), Oracle Financial Services Software (down 0.6%), LTIMindtree (down 0.53%), Tata Consultancy Services (down 0.47%) and Infosys (down 0.41%) declined.
Stocks in Spotlight:
SEPC rallied 1.85% after the company has secured a significant order worth Rs 75.19 crore from Gefos Solutions for the supply & delivery of construction materials for four residential infrastructure projects.
Meta Infotech surged 5.92% after the company announced that it has received fresh and renewal purchase orders aggregating to Rs 127.74 crore.
Lemon Tree Hotels added 0.67%. The company has signed two new properties—Keys Prima by Lemon Tree Hotels, Varanasi, and Keys Select by Lemon Tree Hotels, Rewa.