Nifty may see the level of 5,160 and then 5,100. A close above the previous day’s high may signal the end of the downtrend

Unsupportive global cues and a rout for the Congress party in the state elections resulted in the market settling lower for the second straight day. Yesterday we had mentioned that the Nifty should decisively break the level of 5,266 for a further downslide. Today, the index broke this level in the initial trading hours itself and closed at 5,222. From here we may see the index moving down to the level of 5,160 and 5,100. However, for the trend to reverse the benchmark should firmly close above 5,310. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) saw a volume of 88.04 crore shares.

The market opened lower tracking the Asian markets, which were trading lower in morning trade as the US markets settled in the red overnight. Nervousness ahead of the assembly elections results also weighed on the domestic investors.  The Nifty resumed trade at 5,266, a dip of 14 points, and the Sensex lost 26 points to begin trade at 17,337.  A sharp sell-off saw the benchmarks heading lower in initial trade.

Investors resorted to bargain hunting at lower levels which pushed the indices into the positive soon. A smart recovery, supported by gains in realty, banking, auto, IT and capital goods stocks, enabled the market hit its intraday high in mid-morning trade wherein the Nifty rose to 5,382 and the Sensex surged to 17,692.

The market pared all the gains and ventured into the red in post-noon trade on profit booking by institutional investors.  The indices made efforts to move higher but their efforts were thwarted by sellers on the back of the key European indices trading lower, pushing the market to the day’s low in the last half hour. At the lows, the Nifty touched 5,206 and the Sensex dropped to 17,128.

The market settled a tad off the lows with the Nifty erasing 58 points at 5,222 and the Sensex declining 190 points to finish at 17,173.

The advance-decline ratio on the NSE was tilted in favour of the decliners at 524:1214.

The broader indices underperformed the Sensex as the BSE Mid-cap index fell by 1.11% and the BSE Small-cap index declined 1.29%.

BSE Fast Moving Consumer Goods index (up 0.79%) was the top sectoral gainer today. It was followed by BSE Consumer Durables (up 0.62%) BSE IT (up 0.52%). The losers were led by BSE Metal (down 3.88%); BSE Power (down 2.38%); BSE Capital Goods (down 1.94%); BSE Oil & Gas (down 1.79%) and BSE Bankex (down 1.09%).

The top five scrips on the Sensex were DLF (up 2.73%); ITC (up 1.45%); Infosys (up 1.41%); Maruti Suzuki (up 1.01%) and Coal India (up 0.67%). The key losers were Hindalco Industries (down 5.75%); Sterlite Industries (down 5.44%); Tata Steel (down 5.40%); Tata Power (down 4.11%) and Jindal Steel (down 3.76%).

The top gainers on the Nifty were DLF (up 2.84%); Siemens (up 2.70%); ITC (up 1.55%); Mahindra & Mahindra (up 1.44%) and Maruti Suzuki (up 1.28%). Reliance Power (down 7.50%); Hindalco Ind (down 6.25%); Tata Steel (down 6.08%); Reliance Infrastructure (down 6.07%) and Sterlite Ind (down 5.89%) were the main losers on the index.

The Asian pack settled lower as the lower growth estimate from China and fresh fears of a recession in Europe worried investors. A Hong Kong-based analyst remarked that the market is in a consolidation phase after the gains seen in the past few months.

The Shanghai Composite tanked 1.41%; the Hang Seng tumbled 2.16%; the Jakarta Composite lost 0.45%; the Nikkei 225 declined 0.63%; the Straits Times dropped 2%; the Seoul Composite fell 0.78% and the Taiwan Weighted settled 0.83% lower. Bucking the trend, the KLSE Composite added 0.04%. At the time of writing, the major European markets were down between 1.07% and 1.56% and the US stock futures were in the negative.

Back home, foreign institutional investors were net buyers of stocks totalling Rs125.50 crore on Monday while domestic institutional investors were net sellers of shares amounting to Rs258.33 crore.

Titan Industries said it will add 70-75 eye-wear outlets to take the number to 250 by September this year. The Tata Group firm is eyeing revenue of Rs120 crore from the eye-wear brand in the current fiscal. The stock surged 3.15% to settle at Rs231 on the NSE.

State-owned steel major SAIL, has yet again hiked prices of both long and flat products for March, on rising demand. Though the increase is marginal, the prices of long products such as TMT bars have been hiked by Rs500 to Rs1,000 a tonne. The stock tumbled 4.51% to close at Rs92 on the NSE.

Credit rating agency CARE has reaffirmed the ‘BBB+’ rating to Nitco’s Rs648.43 crore long-term bank facilities. The rating agency has also reaffirmed ‘A2’ rating to the Rs633.07 crore short-term bank facilities of the company. The stock declined 3.80% to close at Rs43.05 on the NSE.