Stock Market: Bear market hits investors hard; race to bottom feared
By S Jha
New Delhi, February 23: The global equity market is moving in tandem on road downhill. Sensex after breaking the 60,000 level has now gone to 59600 level, and Nifty during the early session on Thursday broken the 17500 level. Bank Nifty is behaving like a frog set on a boiling water. Bears pounce in pack, and they are ferocious when they pool powers of doom all around.
The US equity markets have been falling for four consecutive days now. The US Fed has struck the stance that they would be more hawkish going forward. The rate hikes will continue. The Central banks will follow in suit to the actions of the US Federal Reserve. This vicious cycle of rate hikes may stay on an extended run.
Bank Nifty in the February series has given the worst performance since June last year. Nifty too was worse in the last four months. Adani group of companies has worsened the investors’ confidence by all accounts even while some are seeking to indulge in bottom fishing of the scrips as barring Adani Enterprises and Adani Port and SEZ remain in the lower circuits.
The March series is commencing from Friday arguably on strong bearish note. Worse for the market is the fact there is no leadership in the equity markets, as cyclically all sectors are getting severely punished. The option settlements on Thursday, which was the weekly and monthly expiry, gave a sense of the market closing on a flat note. But the bearishness knocked out several companies in midcap and smallcap segments. In five days, Sensex has lost 2.66 per cent, while Nifty has been knocked down by 2.67 per cent. Foreign institutional investors sold a net of over Rs 1500 crores in the cash market. Their domestic counterparts almost matched them by buying into the cash market. The Thursday session gave a sense of the market being in a sideways mode. But the indices have heavily lost in the last three trading sessions on the back of the return of the rate hike fear, Russia-Ukraine War gaining more heat and likelihood of the economy staying in an extended stressed conditions as shown by squeeze in the global trade data. Even the Indian imports and exports have significantly dipped in January in line with the global stress.
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