Indian equity benchmarks ended
in red on Wednesday, with both Sensex and Nifty closing lower, snapping their
four-session winning streak, mainly due to a sell-off in IT and pharma stocks
amid rising concerns over possible aggressive interest rate hikes to curb high
inflation.

The Sensex rebounded more than
1,200 points from the early lows before finishing at 60,346.97 points, down by
224.11 points or 0.37%. The Nifty ended lower 66.30 points or 0.37% at
18,003.75 points.

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The higher-than-expected
inflation report in the US in August has raised concerns that the US Federal
Reserve is expected to go for aggressive rate hikes, pushing global markets
into the red.

The Sensex had plunged 1,150
points to a low of 59,417.12 points and the Nifty declined to a low of
17,771.15 points in early trade on Wednesday following deep losses in US
markets.

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Gains in banking stocks helped
the indices recover from early lows but selling in IT, energy and pharma shares
restricted the gains.

The broader indices ended in
red with the BSE Midcap index down by 0.10% and the Small cap index down by
0.01%. The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.91%,
Bankex up by 1.28%, Basic Materials up by 1.18%, PSU up by 0.96%, and Telecom
up by 0.34%, while IT down by 3.28%, TECK down by 2.85%, Oil & Gas down by
0.90%, Capital Goods down by 0.83% and Energy down by 0.76% were the top losing
indices on BSE.

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Top losers from the Sensex
pack were Infosys down by 4.53%, TCS down by 3.36%, Tech Mahindra down by
2.61%, HCL Tech down by 2.44%, Larsen & Toubro down by 1.83%, Wipro down by
1.51%, Reliance down by 1.23%, Dr Reddys Labs down by 0.87% and Axis Bank down
by 0.77%.

Among the gainers were
IndusInd Bank up by 4.48%, Power Grid Corp up by 2.58%, NTPC up by 2.57%, SBI
up by 2.39%, Kotak Mahindra up by 1.70%, Tata Steel up by 1.25%, Bajaj Finserv
up by 1.21% and HDFC Bank up by 1.17%.

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India’s wholesale price-based
inflation eased for the third consecutive month in August to 12.41% on
softening in prices of manufactured items. However, August was the 17th
consecutive month of double-digit wholesale price inflation.

The US inflation declined only
to 8.3% in August, instead of the 8.1% economists expected.

Global stock markets declined
sharply following overnight losses on Wall Street as higher-than-expected
inflation raised rate hike fears. European markets were marginally lower while
Asian markets recorded steeper losses. Germany’s DAX shed 0.2% and France’s CAC
40 lost 0.3% while the UK’s FTSE 10 fell 0.7%.

Also Read | Global markets react to higher than expected US inflation data

Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225
fell 2.8%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 2.3%, and the Shanghai Composite
index gave up 0.8%.

The rupee declined by 30 paise
to close at 79.47 against the US dollar as the higher-than-expected US CPI
print resulted in risk-off sentiment among investors.

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According to stock exchange
data, foreign institutional investors (FII) pumped in Rs 1,956.98 crore into
domestic equities on Tuesday.