Opening Bell: Nifty near 15,700, Sensex drops 500 points; all sectors turn red

In line with its Asian peers, the Indian market declined in the opening trade on Wednesday. The benchmarks opened lower by around one per cent amid negative cues from the global market. The broader Nifty50 opened at 15,701.70, while the Sensex declined by nearly 500 points to start at 52,623.15 

Mirroring benchmarks, Nifty midcap declined by around 1% and small cap opened lower by 1.2% in the opening trade.  

On the sectoral front, all Nifty indices ended in the red with FMCG, IT, Metal and Realty declining the most.  

The sharp pullback witnessed in the US last Friday has lost steam and the markets have again turned weak, said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services. 

The decline in commodity prices last week has not sustained and Brent crude is back to above $117, the expert pointed out.  

"Even though there is no consensus on whether the US economy will slip into recession or not, there are clear signs of the economy slowing down. But, the labour market continues to be strong in the US and unemployment is low at 3.6%. In this context of conflicting signals, markets are likely to remain choppy," said Vijayakumar 
 

Investors should understand the fact that big money is made not by investing in a bull market but by systematically investing through a bear market and waiting patiently for the inevitable bull market, he said, while advising them to invest systematically in high-quality stocks. 
 

The Sensex declined by over 500 points in line with the trends on the global market as 49 stocks declined and one traded neutral on the 30-share index. 

Earlier, SGX Nifty Futures declined nearly 100 points on the Singaporean exchange in the morning trade.  

Other major Asian markets, such as Japanese Nikkei 225 and Hang Seng Index at the Hong Kong exchange declined more than one per cent each, while Chinese Shanghai Composite dropped 0.3% around 8 am on Wednesday.  

On Tuesday, in the US markets, Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P500 declined between 1.5-3%, as all major indices slipped in the red.