Business News Live: Sensex, Nifty open lower amid mixed global cues

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Sensex, Nifty open lower amid mixed global cues

The Indian equity benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty opened lower on Tuesday amid mixed global cues. At 9:16, Sensex was down 0.22% at 55462.67 while Nifty fell 0.23% to 16525.20.

Among sectors, banks, metal and auto stocks fell while FMCG and Pharma indices gained.

India’s fuel demand continues to pick up, diesel sales 8% less than pre-COVID level

India’s fuel demand curve continued to go up in August after diesel sales rose on easing of COVID restrictions, PTI reported.

While petrol sales surpassed pre-COVID levels, diesel is still 8% short. The figure is an improvement as compared with last month where diesel consumption was 11% lower than pre-COVID levels.

State-owned fuel retailers sold 0.98 million tonnes of petrol in the first half of August, 3.7% higher than pre-Covid petrol sales in August 1-15, 2019. Sales of diesel rose 18.5% over the previous year during August 1-15, but was down 7.9% from August 2019.

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Oil surges on bargain-hunting, expectations producers will not raise supply soon

Oil prices surged on Tuesday after investors looked for bargain and on expectations that major oil producers will not boost supply soon amid rising cases of COVID-19, Reuters reported. 

Brent crude rose 0.2% to $69.64 a barrel after falling 1.5% on Monday while U.S oil was up 0.2% to $67.43 a barrel after losing 1.7% the previous day.

"WTI has a support around $65 and investors tend to look for bargains whenever the benchmark gets closer to the level as we have seen on Monday and last week," Toshitaka Tazawa, an analyst at Fujitomi Securities Co Ltd. told Reuters.

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