If the Nifty breaks below 5,840 next week, the market may go below the recent bottom of 5,664
A sell-off in realty, banking and oil & gas stocks after the government and the RBI said it they would probe the money laundering charges in the top three private charges, dragged the market lower today. If the Nifty breaks below 5,840 next week, the market may go below the recent bottom of 5,664. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) reported a volume of 67.48 crore shares and advance-decline ratio of 517:1007.
The market witnessed another day of flat opening despite supportive global cues as local on cautiousness ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy review on Tuesday. US markets settled higher on Thursday as applications for jobless claims fell last week to the lowest level in nearly two months. Markets in Asia were firm in morning trade on optimism from the US and the Japanese parliament’s confirmation of Haruhiko Kuroda as the next governor of the Bank of Japan.
The Nifty resumed trade six points higher at 5,915 and the Sensex opened unchanged at 19,570. Buying in consumer durables, metal, oil & gas and power stocks pushed the indices higher in early trade. Encouraged by the gains, the market hit its intraday high in the first half hour of trade. The Nifty touched 5,946 and the Sensex rose to 19,673 at their highs.
Pressure in banking and auto stocks resulted in the benchmarks coming off the highs. The market entered the negative in late morning trade as selling intensified. The indices dropped to their lows at around 1.30pm with the Nifty falling to 5,861 and the Sensex retracting to 19,390.
The indices made a feeble attempt to bounce back from the lows, but sellers dominated the scene pushing the market lower once again. The market was range-bound for the remaining of the trading session.
The market indices settled lower on as the government and the RBI said that they would launch a probe into alleged money laundering by three top private banks. The Nifty fell 36 points (0.62%) to settle at 5,873 and the Sensex closed 143 points (0.73%) to 19,428.
Among the broader indices, the BSE Mid-cap index declined 0.62% and the BSE Small-cap index dropped 0.84%.
BSE Consumer Durables (up 2.49%); BSE IT (up 0.25%) and BSE TECk (up 0.02%) were the sectoral gainers today. The top losers were BSE Realty (down 2.81%); BSE Bankex (down 1.67%); BSE Oil & Gas (down 1.18%); BSE Auto (down 0.80%) and BSE Capital Goods (down 0.59%).
Twelve of the 30 stocks on the Sensex closed in the positive. The main gainers were Mahindra & Mahindra (up 1.48%); Tata Power (up 1.19%); Hero MotoCorp (up 0.73%); Wipro (up 0.57%) and Hindustan Unilever (up 0.49%). The major losers were ICICI Bank (down 3.93%); Tata Motors (down 3.27%); GAIL India (down 2.60%); Reliance Industries (down 1.96%) and HDFC Bank (down 1.67%).
The top two A Group gainers on the BSE were—Siemens (up 6.50%) and Titan Industries (up 5.78%).
The top two A Group losers on the BSE were—National Aluminium Company (down 8.81%) and Coromandel international (down 5.68%).
The top two B Group gainers on the BSE were—BOC India (up 19.99%) and Gennex Laboratories (up 19.15%).
The top two B Group losers on the BSE were—Ortin Laboratories (down 19.96%) and VSF Projects (down 19.78%).
Of the 50 stocks on the Nifty, 22ended in the green. The key gainers were Siemens (up 6.11%); Asian Paints (up 2.42%); Lupin (up 1.90%); Ranbaxy Laboratories (up 1.54%) and M&M (up 1.34%). The chief losers were DLF (down 4.46%); ICICI Bank (down 3.76%); Tata Motors (down 3.26%); GAIL India (down 2.98%) and Jaiprakash Associates (down 2.88%).
Markets in Asia closed mixed after opening higher this morning. While markets in China, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore settled higher, others settled lower on profit taking after recent gains.
The Shanghai Composite gained 0.36%; the Jakarta Composite surged 1.34%; the Nikkei 225 climbed 1.45% and the Straits rose 0.17%. On the other hand, the Hang Seng fell 0.38%; the KLSE Composite declined 0.54%; the Seoul Composite dropped 0.78% and the Taiwan Weighted fell 0.315.
At the time of writing, the key European markets were in the negative and the US stock futures were mixed.
Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of shares aggregating Rs607.12 crore on Thursday. On the other hand, domestic institutional investors were net sellers of equities amounting to Rs829.20 crore.
Turnkey engineering major Punj Lloyd today said it received an offshore project in Al-Khafji, Saudi Arabia marking its entry into the Middle East market. The Rs314-crore ($57.75 million) project involves detail design, engineering, procurement, testing, transportation and construction/installation of a new crude transmission line, 40 km submarine rigid pipeline, mechanical completion, pre-commissioning, commissioning /start up, and performance testing. The stock climbed 3.82% to close at Rs48.90 on the NSE.
Infosys on Thursday announced the setting up of a new delivery centre in Munich to service automobile major BMW. The software exporter has bagged a five-year outsourcing deal from BMW. As a part of this deal, Infosys will manage the IT infrastructure of BMW. Infosys rose 0.13% to close at Rs2,877.90 on the NSE.
