Mumbai, Dec 18: The Indian stock market opened flat Wednesday as investors await the US Federal Reserve's interest rate decision.

At around 9:33 am, Sensex was trading at 80,651.44 after declining 33.01 points or 0.04 per cent, while the Nifty was trading at 24,328.75 after declining 7.25 points or 0.03 per cent.

The market trend remained negative. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 882 stocks were trading in green, while 1,306 stocks were in red.

The focus of global markets will be the Fed decision on Wednesday (US time). A 25 bp rate cut is priced-in by the market.

“The attention will be on the Fed commentary. A significant trend in the Indian market is the outperformance of the broader market where good results are getting appreciated by the market and there is no concern of FII selling,” said experts.

Nifty Bank was down 152.85 points or 0.29 per cent at 52,681.95. Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 58,900.55 after dropping 201.35 points or 0.34 per cent. Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 19,346.40 after dropping 52.05 points or 0.27 per cent.

In the Sensex pack, Tata Motors, Power Grid, L&T, Maruti, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, UltraTech Cement, SBI and NTPC were the top losers. Sun Pharma, HCLTech, Tech Mahindra, TCS, ITC, Bharti Airtel and M&M were the top gainers.

In the Asian markets, except Japan and Bangkok, the markets of China, Hong Kong, Seoul and Jakarta were trading in green.

In US stock markets, the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 ended 0.32 per cent and 0.39 per cent lower respectively and Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.61 per cent down in the previous trading session.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 6,409.86 crore in India on December 17, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 2,706.48 crore on the same day.

According to experts, the near-term market construct has turned weak with FIIs turning sellers on rallies.

“The trend of FII buying in early December has proved to be, as feared, a flash in the pan. Yesterday’s massive FII sell figure of Rs 6410 crores in the cash market indicates that more selling is in store on market bounces," they added.

(IANS)

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