Sensex falls over 200 points, snaps 8-day winning streak

Indian equity benchmarks fell early on Friday, snapping an eight-day winning streak as investors looked to US payroll data due for release later in the day to assess further signs of changes in the Federal Reserve’s rate hike plans. looked forward to.

The BSE Sensex index fell 248.71 points to 63,035.48 in early trade and the broader NSE Nifty opened lower in early trade, reflecting a sea of ​​red among other Asian indices.

“Markets are likely to consolidate and trade lower in Friday’s early trade on weak cues from Asian markets,” said Prashant Tapase, Senior Vice President, Research at Mehta Equities.

“Investors around the world will be closely watching today’s highly anticipated US November jobs report,” he added.

In the previous session, both the benchmarks had closed at record highs for the sixth consecutive day and had extended gains for eight consecutive days.

The record breaking spree started on Friday last week, after which Sensex and Nifty closed at new highs every day.

In November, both the benchmarks closed at an all-time high for a total of eight days.

While foreign institutional investors (FIIs) turned net sellers as they offloaded shares worth Rs 1,565.93 crore on Thursday, capital inflows have remained strong in November as the Federal Reserve indicated to reduce the pace of its aggressive rate hikes.

VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, told PTI, “Fed chief Jerome Powell says it makes sense to reduce the pace of rate hike.” ,

But bulls were restrained on Friday ahead of US non-farm payrolls data, which was to be released later in the day, after Wall Street equities closed lower overnight on Thursday.