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Mirroring other Asian peers, Indian equity indices continue to trade in deep red in absence of any buying activity amidst US stocks fell sharply overnight on worries the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike this week may not be enough to help fight surging inflation. Continuous foreign fund outflows and mixed corporate earnings results also impacted traders’ sentiments. So far this week, foreign investors have net sold Indian equities worth $635 million, compared with $881 million offloaded in the same period last week. Markets were getting additional pressure as India Ratings said inflation, supply chain disruptions and a weak consumption demand could upset the revival in credit growth in the medium term. It said the reversal of the interest rate cycle--marked by the Reserve Bank of India’s 40 basis points increase in policy repo rate -- would weigh down credit growth as borrowings become costlier.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red amid uncertainty over Ukraine-Russia war and soaring inflation. Back home, all sectoral indices on BSE were witnessing heavy selling pressure with metal and basic materials remaining top losing indices. Sell off also continued in broader indices with both mid cap and small cap indices trading down by over 2% each. Among individual stocks, Reliance Industries was trading down by over 1.50%. The oil-to-retail conglomerate is going to report its quarterly (Q4) results later in the day.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 54804.47, down by 897.76 points or 1.61% after trading in a range of 54586.75 and 55070.12. There were 3 stocks advancing against 27 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index lost 2.16%, while Small cap index was down by 2.39%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal down by 4.01%, Basic Materials down by 3.03%, IT down by 2.61%, Realty down by 2.58% and Consumer Durables was down by 2.08%, while there were no gaining sectoral indices on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ITC up by 1.36%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.20% and NTPC was up by 0.19%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 4.00%, Bajaj Finance down by 3.79%, Wipro down by 3.56%, Bajaj Finserv down by 3.35% and Indusind Bank was down by 2.67% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in latest report has said that telecom service providers' gross revenue declined by 2.64 per cent to Rs 69,695 crore in December 2021 quarter. The gross revenue of the telecom service providers (TSPs) was Rs 71,588 crore in the same period a year ago.

It stated that TSPs' adjusted gross revenue, on which the government charges various levies, increased by 15.81 per cent to Rs 55,151 crore in the December 2021 quarter from Rs 47,623 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2020. The spectrum usage charges (SUC) collection of the government increased by 14.47 per cent to Rs 1,760 crore in the December 2022 quarter from Rs 1,538 crore in the year-ago period.

Further, it said that Reliance Jio registered the highest AGR of Rs 19,063.75 crore in the December 2022 quarter. It was followed by Bharti Airtel with Rs 4,484.48 crore, Vodafone Idea Rs 6,541.83 crore, BSNL Rs 1,984.94 crore, Tata Teleservices Rs 530.21 crore, MTNL Rs 254.78 crore, Reliance Communications Rs 61.69 crore and Quadrant Rs 13.22 crore. Besides, it said the total number of telephone subscribers in India decreased by 0.9 per cent to 117.84 crore at the end of December 2021 over the previous quarter. The total internet subscriber base in the country stood at 82.93 crore and broadband subscribers at 79.2 crore at the end of the December 2021 quarter.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 16417.10, down by 265.55 points or 1.59% after trading in a range of 16340.90 and 16482.80. There were 4 stocks advancing against 45 stocks declining, while 1 stock remain unchanged on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hero MotoCorp up by 2.85%, ITC up by 1.26%, Britannia Inds up by 0.56% and Bharti Airtel was up by 0.02%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 3.97%, Hindalco down by 3.96%, Divi's Lab down by 3.84%, UPL down by 3.82% and Wipro was down by 3.62% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Taiwan Weighted dropped 287.92 points or 1.72% to 16,408.20, Shanghai Composite declined 63.85 points or 2.08% to 3,003.91, Hang Seng decreased 743.12 points or 3.57% to 20,050.28, Straits Times trembled 47.90 points or 1.43% to 3,295.67 and KOSPI was down by 29.56 points or 1.1% to 2,648.01.

On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was up by 185.03 points or 0.69% to 27,003.56.

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