West Asian tensions lower Sensex

Mumbai: The equity markets closed lower for the third consecutive day as concerns regarding a slowdown in IT sector and brewing tension in the West Asia kept investors on the sidelines. After opening the day on a positive note, both the Sensex and Nifty failed to sustain their winning momentum amidst heavy selling in IT sector stocks ahead of their Q4 earnings numbers. The Sensex slumped 130.87 points or 0.44 per cent to end the day at 29,575.74 while the Nifty closed the day at 9,181.45, down 16.85 points or 0.18 per cent.

The shares of Infosys Ltd, which would announce its Q4 numbers on April 13 slumped 2.88 per cent on Monday after technology research firm Gartner revised downwards its forecast on worldwide IT spending to 1.4 per cent from 2.7 per cent in 2017. The selling pressure was also witnessed in other leading IT counters like Wipro and HCL Technologies, which closed lower by 1.64 per cent and 1.91 per cent respectively.   

According to the provisional data released by the stock exchanges, FPIs offloaded shares worth Rs 716.19 crore.

“FPI’s exited some of their long (buy) positions in index futures and has also covered decent amount of shorts in stock futures. However, their majority of index future longs formed in last three series are still intact in the system,” said Jay Purohit, technical and derivative analyst at Angel Broking.