Indian equity benchmarks gave up initial gains in a choppy session on Tuesday, amid persistent concerns about steep rate hikes hampering economic growth and geopolitical tensions in Europe. TCS shares succumbed to negative territory even as the software exporter kicked off the corporate earnings season on a strong note.

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NSE

Both main indices fell as much as 0.7 percent in the first few minutes of trade. The Sensex dropped 408.1 points to 57,583 at the weakest level of the day so far, and the Nifty50 slipped to as low as 17,116.6, down 124.4 points from its previous close.

Losses in IT, financial, oil & gas and healthcare shares dragged the headline indices lower, though gains in consumer durables names lent some support.

As many as 41 stocks in the Nifty50 basket began the day in the positive zone. Wipro, Larsen & Toubro, Adani Ports, Bharti Airtel and Bharat Petroleum were the top gainers.

UPL, HCL Tech, JSW Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra and PowerGrid — rising around half a percent each — were some of the other blue-chip stocks that gained the most.

Hindalco, the HDFC twins, TCS and Maruti — opening around one percnet lower each — were the top laggards.

TCS, Reliance, HDFC Bank, Infosys and Hindustan L=Unilever were the biggest drags on both Sensex and Nifty50.

TCS shares fell by as much as Rs 66.5 or 2.1 percent to Rs 3,054.8 apiece on BSE.

"The global environment continues to be weak for markets with concerns rising about a US recession and a possible hard landing. Clarity is yet to emerge on this. India’s market outperformance to the US continues... A significant factor contributing to this outperformance is that FII selling is getting completely absorbed by DII and retail buying," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

"The fundamentals of the Indian economy and corporates continue to be sound. The earnings season has started off well with decent numbers from TCS which have beaten Street estimates on most parameters," he added.

Overall market breadth was largely neutral, as 1,550 stocks rose and 1,355 fell on BSE in early deals.

Global markets

Equities in other Asian markets tumbled on Tuesday, after a weak handover from Wall Street overnight, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan trading down 2.1 percent at the last count. Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 2.3 percent.

S&P 500 futures were down 0.4 percent. On Monday, the Nasdaq Composite finished one percent lower to log its lowest close since July 2020.

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