Finance
Stock Market Highlights, Friday, February 7, 2025: The benchmark equity indices, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty50, fell on Friday after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor announced a 25 basis points (bps) interest rate, as predicted. However, the central banker maintained the current policy stance.
The RBI-appointed Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) decided to decrease the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent from 6.5 percent. According to RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra, the RBI MPC has also unanimously resolved to maintain its ‘neutral’ position and stay “unambiguously focused on a durable alignment of inflation with the target while supporting growth”.
The BSE Sensex peaked at 78,357 before falling to 77,476 in intra-day trading, a loss of roughly 900 points. The Sensex eventually ended the day with a loss of 198 points at 77,860. In the process, the BSE Sensex was down for the third straight day, but still managed to end the week 354 points higher.
The NSE Nifty 50 index moved between 23,694 and 23,443, before closing the day at 23,560, down 43%.
Among the Sensex 30 stocks, ITC increased by 4.5%. Bharti Airtel rose 3.5% on the back of a five-fold increase in Q3 profit. Other major gainers included Zomato, Mahindra & Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, IndusInd Bank, Tech Mahindra, and NTPC.
On the other side, ITC and SBI fell more than 2% each day after publishing their Q3 results. Other laggards on Friday included Adani Ports, TCS, ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, and Power Grid.
Sectorally, the Nifty FMCG and PSU Bank indices fell almost 1.5 percent each. The Oil & Gas Index was also down roughly 1%. Whereas, the Nifty Metal index surged over 2 per cent in trades.
In the broader market, the MidCap indexes ended the day with small gains, while the SmallCap indices fell slightly. India VIX – the volatility index fell 4%.
The total market breadth was negative. Out of 4,057 equities traded on the BSE, 2,433 closed in the red, while 1,478 rose.
Source: BS
