Share markets in India continued to trade in the red during closing hours and ended their trading session marginally lower. Sectoral indices traded on a mixed note with stocks in the power sector and oil & gas sector witnessing most of the selling pressure.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 60 points (down 0.2%) and the NSE Nifty closed down by 25 points (down 0.2%). The BSE Mid Cap index ended the day down 0.5%, while the BSE Small Cap index ended the day down 0.3%.

The rupee was trading at 73.04 against the US$.

Asian stock markets finished on a negative note. As of the most recent closing prices, the Hang Seng was down by 2.1% and the Shanghai Composite was down by 0.4%. The Nikkei 225 was down 1.6%.

Ankit Shah offers an interesting observation around the falling stock markets.

The below chart shows the difference between the performance of the Sensex and the Dollex 30 index (Sensex in US dollar terms).

Dollex-30 Is Down 10% in 2018

You can see how the trend between the Sensex and Dollex-30 diverged since February 2018.

The Dollex-30 index has declined 10% in 2018 so far.

No wonder that foreign investors have been dumping Indian stocks. Since April 2018, foreign investors have sold equities worth Rs 56,550 crores. What is worth noting is that Rs 27,623 crores worth of equities were sold in the month of October alone.

Stocks such as Cipla, Fortis Healthcare, GAIL, PNB Housing, Power Grid, Inox Wind, Natco Pharma, and Tata Jewels were in focus today as these companies announced their quarterly results today.

You can read our recently released Q2FY19 result analysis of the following companies: Asian Paints, TVS Motors, Wipro, Ambuja Cement, HDFC Bank, Infosys and more.

In the news from currency markets, the Indian rupee is witnessing selling pressure today. The domestic unit weakened against the US dollar after tracking losses in Asian currencies market amid speculation about a US-China trade deal.