Indian markets ended the week around 4 percent lower mainly on the back of the surprise move by the Reserve Bank of India, in which it raised the repo raised by 40 bps to 4.4 percent for the first time since the COVID pandemic due to rising inflation.
Moreover, weakness in global peers also dragged the sentiment.
"The single important factor roiling global equity markets is the reemergence of inflation as a major threat and market's skepticism over the central banks' ability to contain inflation without triggering a sharp economic slowdown," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services
Vijayakumar added that Nasdaq is at one-year lows and S&P 500 appears to be moving in that direction and India cannot remain uncoupled from this trend particularly when FPIs are on a selling spree and has more firepower to remain bearish.
During the week, over 400 stocks from the NSE500 index were in the red. 11 of them fell over 15 percent each. Solara Active Pharma shed the most, down 29 percent during the week followed by TV18 Broadcast, down 27 percent and Angel One, down 22 percent.
Zomato, Intellect Design, Voltas, Sterlite Tech, Info Edge, Poonawalla Fincorp and Just Dial also fell between 15 percent and 18 percent during the week.
Meanwhile, among gainers, only 4 stocks rose over 5 percent in the NSE500 index - CSB Bank (10 percent), Vardhman Textiles (8.3 percent), Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (6.7 percent) and Tata Tele (5 percent).
On the Nifty50 index, 40 stocks were in the red for the week with Apollo Hospital Enterprises declining the most, down 15.6 percent, Axis Bank, Titan, Eicher Motors, and Bajaj Finance also fell over 10 percent each.
Amid the volatility, Vijayakumar advised investors to remain calm in these turbulent times without taking aggressive positions. Calibrated buying on declines in small quantities in high-quality stocks with a preference for value over growth would be a good investment strategy, he said.
