Nifty below 17,700 at closing, Sensex loses 483 pts

Benchmark stock market indices closed in the red on Monday , dragged by IT and financials. 

The BSE Sensex closed at 58,964.57, down 482.61 points or 0.81 per cent. It recorded an intraday high of 59,355.76 and a low of 58,894.40. The Nifty 50 closed at 17,674.95, down 109.40 points or 0.62 per cent. It recorded an intraday high of 17,779.05 and a low of 17,650.95.

Breadth remains positive

The market breadth remained positive with 2,099 stocks advancing on the BSE as against 1,456 that declined while 130 remained unchanged. Furthermore, 15 stocks hit the upper circuit as compared to the four stocks that were locked in the lower circuit. Besides, 263 stocks touched their respective 52-week highs and 14 stocks touched 52-week lows.

According to analysts, investors are awaiting the financial results of Tata Consultancy Services that are expected to be released at 6 pm on Monday.

Mitul Shah, Head of Research, Reliance Securities, said, “Domestic equities ended lower, tracking weakness across Asian markets, whilst investors await the onset of the corporate earnings season.”

According to Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, “The market is wary ahead of the ECB meeting, the release of US inflation data, and the start of the domestic Q4 result season. Indian IT sector dragged due to weak result expectations on a QoQ basis. In this shortened week, the market is cautious as trading at the upper side of the trend and momentum has shifted from broad to stock-specific.”

Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities Ltd said, “Negative sentiment across Asian equities had a bearing on local stocks, as investors followed suit and trimmed their positions in risky counters. Investors, especially, shunned technology stocks ahead of TCS results because of fears that any subdued outlook for next quarter earnings could ignite further selling in the sector going ahead.”

Grasim, Adani Ports, Cipla, Apollo Hospitals and JSW Steel were the top gainers on the Nifty 50, while HCL Tech L&T, Infosys, Wipro and SBI Life were the top laggards.

Oil & gas, realty in focus

On the sectoral front, a majority of indices closed in the red. While oil & gas and realty gained, IT and financials dragged.

Nifty Oil & Gas was up nearly 2 per cent at closing, while Nifty Realty was up over 1 per cent.

Meanwhile, Nifty IT was down over 1 per cent. Nifty Bank and Nifty Financial Services were down 0.37 per cent and 0.56 per cent, respectively Nifty PSU Bank was down 0.44 per cent, while Nifty Private Bank was down 0.29 per cent.

Broader indices

As for broader indices, Nifty Midcap 50 was up 0.36 per cent, while the S&P BSE Smallcap was down 0.05 per cent. The S&P BSE Midcap was up 0.41 per cent, while the S&P BSE Smallcap was up 0.38 per cent. 

The volatility index was up 3.29 per cent to 18.27.

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