At 9.19 am, soon after the opening bell, Sensex was at 72,585.93, down 57.50 points or 0.079 per cent,
Going ahead into this week, monetary policy outcomes of five central bank,
"The March Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting will play a key role in guiding market rates expectations after US equities indices climbed despite higher-than-expected consumer price index (CPI) readings for February," said S&P Global Market Intelligence.
In specific, markets will closely watch
The US Federal Reserve in its January meeting voted to leave the key interest rate unchanged at 5.25-5.50 per cent, keeping the policy rate unchanged for the fourth straight time on a trot.
"Bears may seize control following a weak lead from Wall Street in Friday's trading session, potentially triggering volatility in Nifty as bullish traders scale back amidst anticipation of an impending Fed rate cut. With the Federal Reserve's decision looming on Wednesday, March 20th, market volatility is expected to intensify," said
That said, foreign portfolio investors continue to remain net buyers in India.
Foreign portfolio investors who had aggressively sold Indian stocks and turned net sellers in the Indian equity market in January 2024 became net buyers in February and March. This has also likely buoyed the stocks of late.
So far in March, they bought stocks in India worth Rs 40,710 crore, the latest data from the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) showed.
"The trend of rising foreign portfolio investment in India witnessed in the first week of March continued in the second week, too.