Stock market today: The headline indices were volatile in the early trade on Friday, February 9. At the time of writing this news, the 30-share index of the BSE traded flat at 71,442.94 levels, while the NSE's Nifty was trading above 21,700 levels.

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"When valuations are high, the bears will use any negative news to push the market down. The slightly negative news, from the market perspective, came yesterday in the slightly hawkish comments of the RBI Governor. The good news that the economy is doing better than expected, and a GDP growth projection of 7% and CPI inflation of 4.5% for FY 25 were ignored. The selling was aggravated by FIIs, too, running with the bears. There is a significant buildup in the short position of FIIs. This normally happens along with the rise in US 10-year bond yields, which are now at 4.15%," said Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, at Geojit Financial Services.

FII selling and bear onslaughts are unlikely to take the market down significantly. There will be strong buying on dips. The sustained flows into mutual funds, which are gathering momentum, will enable the DIIs to buy aggressively. A good investment strategy now would be to buy the blue chips that FIIs are selling, Nair added.

Among individual names, LIC hit a record high after the company posted a strong set of numbers for the quarter ended December 31, 2023. Hero Moto Corp was trading nearly half a per cent higher at Rs 4,830 on the BSE ahead of its Q3 results.

On the sectoral front, barring BSE Bankex, all the sectoral indices were trading in the red on the BSE.