Mid-day market trade: Nifty, Sensex trade lower as Q1 earnings to kickstart this week; Titan top loser

Indian equities after a muted opening continued to trade lower amid across-the-board sell-off. In the mid-market trade, the bluechip Nifty index traded lower by 0.11 per cent or 27.05 points at 24,296.8, while the BSE Sensex was down 0.077 per cent or 61.42 points at 79,935.18.

Meanwhile, broader markets after logging  their fresh highs in intra-day session, traded weak by up to 0.42 per cent. Nifty Bank, the gauge of the banking sector’s performance, also fell and was last down by 0.5 per cent with HDFC Bank contributing to the highest losses on the index.

Within the Nifty 50 pack, ONGC, ITC, HUL, Wipro and Nestle emerged as top gainers, while laggards from the basket included stocks like Titan, Divi’s Laboratories, Shriram Finance, BPCL and Adani Enterprises.

Sectorally, of the 16 major sectoral indices, only FMCG and Oil & Gas indices traded positively, with FMCG pack leading the gains up over 1 per cent.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services noted that the US unemployment climbing to 4.1 per cent indicates an economy cooling slowly. Disinflation and rising unemployment creates the ideal macro backdrop that can facilitate a rate cut by the Fed in September itself. This is positive for global equity markets.

Rail stocks including the likes of IRFC, Ircon International and RVNL logged healthy gains of up to 15 per cent as the Railway Minister last week announced ambitious plans of introducing new general passenger coaches.

Marico shares gained over 6 per cent after consolidated revenue during June quarter registered high single-digit growth.

Meanwhile, European shares traded mixed, with the FTSE index showing a downtrend, while German DAX was up 0.3 per cent.