Sensex, Nifty Open Higher Despite Weak Global Markets

Despite of weakness in global markets amid concerns over China's Evergrande crisis and decision meet ahead on Wednesday, the Indian equity markets edged higher in the morning trade on Tuesday, September 21 with the Sensex opening up by 200 points led by FMCG and IT counters.

However, at 10:03 AM, the Sensex slipped red and was trading lower by 22.85 points at 58,468.08, while the Nifty-50 was down 6.20 points at 17,390.70. Shares of Asian Paints, IndusInd Bank, and HUL advanced between 1-2 per cent each and played defensives, while those of Maruti Suzuki (-2.41 per cent), Bajaj Auto(-1.07 per cent), and ICICI Bank(-0.95 per cent) weighed on the Sensex.

Experts are of a view that the markets are showing good action negating all the alarming news coming in from other countries, said experts. Adding to it, the foreign investors are backing the Indian markets strongly as they have been net buyers in the equities so far this month. On Tuesday, September 20, the Foreign Institutional Investors net purchased shares worth Rs 92.54 crore, while the domestic institutional investors offloaded shares worth Rs 1,626.58 crore, as per the provisional data available on the exchanges.

Tracking the individuals, shares of SBI Cards were in major focus after CA Rover Holdings, an affiliate of Carlyle Asia decided to sell 3.2 crore shares of the company or dilute its stake by 3.4 per cent in the company. In another development, HCL Technologies was also in major focus post the company's 5-year agreement with MKS Instruments for digital and cloud services.

In the primary market action, Paras Defence and Space Technologies is set to open its public issue for subscription today. The company's Rs 170.77 crore public issue is offered at a price band of Rs 165-175 per share. Prior to the opening of issue, the company raised Rs 51.23 crore from five anchor investors on Tuesday, September 20.

In the overall market breadth at the time of filing, 1391 shares declined and 353 shares advanced in the NSE.