Bears Take Control Of D-Street Amid Powell’s Hawkish Tone

At close on Monday, the 30-share Sensex slumped 831.25 points or 1.46 per cent to 57,972.62 while its broader peer the Nifty shed 246 points or 1.40 per cent to settle at 17,312.90

The Indian stock market closed with deep cuts on Monday in what was the first session after Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole Symposium speech in which he signaled aggressive rate hikes for some time to tame inflation. His promise of policy pain to contain inflation quashed hopes of investors who were anticipating that the Fed would go easy on rate hikes and soften its stance to prevent an economic slowdown. At close on Monday, the 30-share Sensex slumped 831.25 points or 1.46 per cent to 57,972.62 while its broader peer the Nifty shed 246 points or 1.40 per cent to settle at 17,312.90.

“Investors had already got the wind of bearish undertone for the start of the week, after the US Fed chairman’s speech on Friday talked about further rate hikes going ahead to tame inflation. And as expected, Sensex crashed nearly 1,500 points in early trades before recovering some ground to close off its day’s low. Traders are expecting more bouts of volatility in coming sessions on concerns that continuation of rate hikes in the US could pose a threat to the global economy and hurt growth prospects,” said Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities. On the Nifty Britannia Industries, Maruti Suzuki, Apollo Hospitals, Nestle India and Asian Paints were among the top gainers while Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and TCS were among the major Nifty losers.