Financials lead Sensex down

New Delhi, Oct 18 (IANS) The BSE Sensex was down 246 points at 66,181 points on Wednesday. Financial stocks are down with Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank down more than 1 per cent.

The tragic bombing in the Gaza hospital has confounded the already confused developments, we are in uncharted territory, says V.K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

"While hoping that things won’t get worse let us look at the broad trends. In spite of the tragic geopolitical developments, globally markets are resilient. There are two main reasons for this. One, the US economy continues to be strong and this is supporting the mother market and thereby other markets, too. Two, the market view is that the Fed (Federal Reserve) will succeed in soft landing the US economy and avert a recession," he added.

Back home in India the resilience of the Indian economy and improving macros are supporting the market. The recent experience is that geopolitical developments will not impact the markets for long. For instance, the market is ignoring the ongoing Ukraine war.

Even while remaining vigilant, market weakness can be used to buy high quality stocks, particularly in sectors like financials, automobiles and capital goods, he added.

Anand James, Chief Market Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said it was not surprising to see the positive bias fizzling off once inside the 19,800-840 region on Tuesday.

The turn lower thereof has not tipped the trend into the weak zone, encouraging us to start the day on a positive note expecting 19,900.

But as maintained in the last two days, positivity can evaporate quickly should we get back below 19,650s again, and towards this end, it would be important to hold above 19,820 after upside attempts.