Nifty opens 20 points lower, Sensex down 57 points, L&T loses 5% in early trade

Stock market today: BSE Sensex and NSE’s benchmark index Nifty 50, on Thursday, opened in red with Sensex trading 57 points or 0.02 per cent lower while the Nifty 50 opened 0.10 per cent or 20 points lower. As of 09:19 am on May 9, Sensex was trading at 73,422.53 while Nifty was trading at Rs 22,285.10. 

At the market opening, Nifty’s sectoral indices were trading in green except for FMCG, Healthcare, and Consumer Durables indices that were trading marginally lower.

Amid a weaker opening, midcap and smallcap indexes were feeling the selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 were trading 0.06 and 0.13 per cent lower. 

Some of the top gainers for the day on the Nifty 50 are Hero MotoCorp (up by 4.64 per cent), Bajaj Auto (up by 1.89 per cent), M&M (up by 1.65 per cent), HCL Tech (up by 0.83 per cent), and Maruti Suzuki (up by 0.81 per cent).

While Larsen and Toubro (down by 4.17 per cent), BPCL (down by 1.43 per cent), HDFC Life (down 1.25 per cent), Tata Consumers (down by 0.93 per cent), and Dr Reddy Laboratories (down by 0.86 per cent), were some of the major losers in the early trade. 

In the early Larsen and Toubro (L&T) shares were trading 4.55 per cent lower after the company announced its January-March quarter results for fiscal 2023-24 (Q4FY24) on Wednesday, May 8. L&T reported a rise of 10.3 per cent in net profit at Rs 4,396 crore, compared to Rs 3,987 crore in the corresponding period last year.  However, the company has announced that the national elections and global geopolitical tensions will hurt the order inflow and revenue of the company in fiscal year 2025. 

On Wednesday, the National Stock Exchange added Canara Bank Ltd and Piramal Enterprises Ltd to its Futures & Options ban list while retaining Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd, Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd, Biocon Ltd, GMR Airports Infrastructure Ltd, Punjab National Bank, Steel Authority of India Ltd, Vodafone Idea Ltd and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited.

As of 10:02 shares of Canara Bank were trading 0.75 per cent higher at Rs 562.30 apiece while the Piramal Enterprises stock dipped 3.24 per cent at Rs 866.00. 

Bank of Baroda shares were trading 2.07 per cent higher at Rs 268.15 apiece after RBI has revised its decision to impose restriction on BOB World, allowing the bank to onboard customers through the app.