MUMBAI: FIIs continued to sell Indian shares and index futures, causing major indices like Nifty and Sensex to end in the red for the third straight session. The Nifty and Sensex both fell by a percent each, thanks to last hour buying by DIIs, which caused them to close above their lows.
FIIs sold a provisional Rs 4,679.84 crore of shares on Thursday, while DIIs purchased Rs 769 crore worth of shares, enabling the Nifty to close 109 points above its low. Nifty closed down by 181.4 points at 17757 and Sensex ended lower by 634.2 points at 59464.62 points.
The top losers on Nifty included Bajaj Finserv, Infosys, TCS, Sun Pharma and Hindustan Unilever, which fell between 2% and 4.6%. Indian markets have witnessed profit booking amid rising inflationary expectations and high stock valuations. The Nifty rallied 11.6% from a low of 16410.2 on December 20 last year through a high of 18321.55 on Dec 17.
From there it has corrected 3% to 17757 on Thursday. In addition to the cash sale, FIIs net sold index futures worth Rs 2,103 crore on Thursday. It implies markets might continue to reel under pressure on Friday. Derivatives data for Jan 27 expiry imply a 17500-18000 range for Nifty with bias for the downside, for now.