Mumbai: The Indian benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty50 on Wednesday opened in red territory amid the cyclical earnings slowdown and global cues which dampen investor sentiments.


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The Nifty50 opened in red at 23,822.45, and BSE Sensex opened at 78,495.53.


The markets on Wednesday extended the fourth consecutive day of declines driven by concerns over weak earnings and foreign fund outflows.


In the opening hour of the trade at National Stock Exchange (NSE), stocks of NTPC, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Tata Motors and Asian Paints are major gainers, while among the losers, Mahindra and Mahindra tumbled over 2.42 per cent followed by Maruti, BPSL, Apollo Hospitals and Nestle India.


Among the sectoral indexes, Bank, Financial Services, IT,Private Banks opened in green territory, leaving others in red.


Domestically, investor sentiment was impacted by India's October retail inflation, which surged to a 14-month high of 6.21 per cent, up from 5.49 per cent in September, pushing inflation above the RBI's target range.


This has likely reduced expectations of a rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its upcoming monetary policy review from December 4-6. Additionally, India's Index of Industrial Production (IIP) showed a 3.1 per cent growth in September, improving from a contraction of 0.1 per cent in August.


"Investors are now awaiting key US inflation data, which will provide insight into the Federal Reserve's next move on interest rates, contributing to heightened market volatility globally," said Varun Aggarwal MD, Profit Idea.


Observing the market movements, Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research, Axis Securities stated that the focus now shifts to what is a critical support zone extending from 23,700 to 23,779, after the yesterday's decline in the Nifty.


"Failure to hold here will bring the widely-followed 200-day average in focus, which lies about 1.5% below the Tuesday close. If the market gets there, it will be the first test of this average since prices broke above it 19 months ago. Daily momentum is not overstretched on the downside even with the recent declines we have seen, while weekly momentum signals are the most oversold since March last year," Chinchalkar said.


Global markets showed signs of fatigue, with Wall Street's momentum from the US presidential election results fading. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones both broke their five-day winning streaks, closing lower on Tuesday.


Asian markets also traded lower on Wednesday, reflecting the overnight losses on Wall Street, while US indices ended in the red, awaiting inflation data.


Going further, the market participants will be keenly watching the second quarterly results of some of the giant companies such as Apollo Tyres, Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers, PI Industries, AstraZeneca Pharma among others.


Companies such as Western Carriers India, Brigade Enterprises, Deepak Nitrite, Bayer CropScience, Thermax, Thomas Cook (India), and Senco Gold will also announce their financials for the second quarter.