FX.co ★ Sensex Falls for 2nd Straight Session

In the early trading hours on Wednesday, India's stock market saw a decline of 205 points, or 0.3%, bringing the index to 81,349. This marked the second day of consecutive losses as foreign investors began withdrawing funds, spurred by multiple block trades in the market. The most significant downturn was in ITC shares, which fell by 3.0%. This drop was in response to British American Tobacco's (BAT) announcement of its intention to divest a 2.6% stake in ITC, following a previous sale of a 3.5% stake last year. After this transaction, BAT's stake in ITC is anticipated to stand at 23.1%. Both the BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 indices fell back as investors awaited key economic data, including the domestic first-quarter GDP figures and forthcoming industrial and manufacturing output reports. Losses were somewhat cushioned by a rally on Wall Street on Tuesday, which resulted from President Trump's decision to extend the deadline for imposing aggressive tariffs on the euro area. Among the other early underperformers were Nestle India, down 1.6%; Mahindra & Mahindra, down 1.2%; IndusInd Bank, down 0.9%; Asian Paints, down 0.9%; and Titan, down 0.8%.