Market kicks off August on a sluggish note; Sensex tanks 400 pts dragged by Infosys, Sun Pharma

Domestic equity benchmarks extended losses to a second straight session on Friday, as selling pressure in export-heavy spaces like IT and pharma outweighed buying in FMCG and energy stocks. The Sensex fell as much as 411 points or 0.5 per cent to 80,774.5 during the session, while the Nifty50 gave up 157.3 points or 0.6 per cent to hit 24,611.1 on the downside. Amid index heavyweights, Infosys, Sun Pharma and HDFC Bank were the biggest drags on the indices, though gains in ITC and RIL lent some support.

At 1:40 pm, the 30-scrip index was down 311.1 points, or 0.4 per cent, at 80,874.5 while the Nifty50 was down 125.5 points, or 0.5 per cent, at 24,642.9.

The market entered a new monthly F&O series after the Nifty 50 finished the July series with a loss of 784 points--halting a four-series winning run. The Nifty Bank gave up 1,258 points in the series gone by.

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Analysts awaited more corporate earnings from India Inc for domestic cues.

Top Nifty 50 gainers and losers

Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's Labs, Cipla, Tata Steel, Infosys, ONGC, Wipro, Tata Motors, SBI Life and Shriram Finance--trading between 1.8 per cent and 4.8 per cent lower--were the worst hit among the 37 losers in the Nifty50 basket.

On the other hand, Trent was the top blue-chip gainer, rising 4.8 per cent in afternoon deals. Other top gainers in the 50-scrip universe were Eicher, Asian Paints, ITC, Nestle India, Hero MotoCorp and HUL, rising between 1.3 per cent and 3.7 per cent.

The Nifty Bank--whose 12 constituents include the stocks of the country's largest and strongest banks--fell as much as 232.6 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 55,729.4, before recouping some of those intraday losses.

Midcap and smallcap indices

Among broader indices, the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 were down 0.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent respectively.

Overall market breadth favoured the bears, with only seven stocks rising for every 10 falling on BSE.

In afternoon trade, 1,549 stocks were up while 2,330 were down on the bourse.

Key factors impacting markets

Here are a few factors influencing Dalal Street now:

• Uncertainty persists around tariffs: US President Donald Trump's tariff policy continues to confuse investors even after he announced a 25 per cent duty for India this week. Trump signed a fresh executive order revising tariffs for 70 countries, including India. Meanwhile, Trump has said that talks between the US and India are on. The back-and-forth with Trump's tariff announcements has kept investors on edge globally.
• Sticky FII outflows: Foreign institutional investors net sold Indian equities worth Rs 47,667 crore in the cash segment, while domestic institutional investors' inflows amounted to Rs 60,939 crore, provisional exchange data shows. This marks the first calendar month of FII outflows since February.
• Mixed earnings: It has been a mixed bag of earnings so far, with a majority of companies registering revenue growth.

Global markets

European shares tumbled in early trade on Friday, with the pan-continental Stoxx 600 falling more than one per cent.

The UK's FTSE, France's CAC and Germany's DAX were down 0.7-1.9 per cent at the last count.

Meanwhile, Dow futures tumbled more than 350 points, indicating a sharply lower opening ahead on Wall Street.