Sensex plunges 788.52 points, Nifty slumps 269 points in early trade amid renewed US-Iran conflict

The domestic equity benchmark indices tanked in the early trade on Wednesday mirroring the Asian markets amid a sharp spike in the global crude oil prices due to the renewed tensions between USA and Iran that dampened investor sentimentThe 30share BSE Sensex plunged 78852 points to 7615576 in early trade The 50share NSE Nifty slumped 269 points to 2378680 in the initial tradeTechnically the Nifty remains vulnerable below 24150 A break of 23950 could trigger further weakness toward 23800 while a sustained move above 24150ndash24200 would ease selling pressure Nearterm direction will largely hinge on crude prices and developments in the Middle East Rajesh Palviya Head of Research Axis Direct saidAmong the Sensex constituents only three stocks were in the green with the rest 27 trading lower Adani Ports Sun Pharma and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the only gainers during the initial trade InterGlobe Aviation Asian Paints Eternal Bharat Electronics and Bajaj Finserv were the major laggards in the early dealsWe believe the intraday market structure is volatile and directionless therefore levelbased trading would be the best strategy for day traders Shrikant Chouhan Head Equity Research Kotak Securities saidOn Tuesday the 30share BSE Sensex dipped 1299 points or 002 per cent to settle at 7694428 The 50share NSE Nifty slipped 2460 points or 010 per cent to end at 2405580Macroeconomic cuesAccording to V K Vijayakumar Chief Investment Strategist Geojit Investments the market is delicately poised between domestic tailwinds and external headwinds On the domestic front the better than expected Q1 GDP growth of 78 per cent higher GST collections stronger credit growth and automobile sales and improving prospects for earnings growth are big positives for the marketUnfortunately the headwinds also are equally strong The escalation of the USIran conflict and the consequent 5 per cent spurt in Brent crude overnight to USD 96 is a sentiment negative However this is not a big threat since our CAD is running at only 05 per cent and forex reserves are ample at USD 730 billion he saidAccording to news agency PTI Brent crude the global oil benchmark was trading higher by 099 per cent at USD 9559 per barrel in futures trade while Foreign Institutional Investors FIIs purchased equities worth Rs 114338 crore on a net basis on TuesdayThe big threat is the rising bond yields in the US The macro construct in the US indicates further hardening of the bond yields If the 10year yield touches 5 per cent that has the potential to trigger a big correction in equity markets globally Therefore this is the macro indicator to watch closely The nearterm market trend will depend on which of these forces the tailwinds or headwinds will emerge stronger Vijayakumar addedGlobal cues remain cautious with Wall Street extending its decline overnight and Asian markets opening lower Palviya notedIn Asian markets South Koreas Kospi Japans Nikkei 225 Shanghais SSE Composite index and Hong Kongs Hang Seng index all traded lowerWith inputs from PTI