No let-up in FPI selling; 353 stocks hit the lower circuit

There is no respite in selling by foreign institutional investors. Their fury took a heavy toll on several mid- and small-cap stocks, many of which are at 52-week lows.

According to the BSE, 353 stocks hit the lower circuit, while 107 stocks hit the upper circuit on Monday.

Among the shares that hit the 10 per cent lower circuit filters are Energy Development Company, Sunil Hitech Engineers, MBL Infrastructures and Star Paper Mills, while Muthoot Capital Services slipped 5 per cent.

Motilal Oswal, CMD of Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said: “This year has been the year of the ‘black swan’ events. First, it was Brexit, then Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential polls and finally the demonetisation.

“This randomness of events has brought a lot of uncertainty into the markets. While Brexit led to currency upheaval, the Trump event will lead to policy uncertainty in the world's largest economy, and hence the biggest source of investible funds. For us, in particular, the government’s demonetisation will lead to questions being raised on the growth theory of India itself,” he added.

The S&P BSE Midcap index slumped 2.8 per cent, the S&P BSE Smallcap index plunged 3.16 per cent and the BSE S&P Sensex slipped 1.47 per cent.

Compared to 33 companies that registered their year highs on Monday, 168 firms marked their 52-week lows.

Among the prominent stocks that tested their year lows are Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, Arvind Infrastructure, Bata India, Coffee Day, Financial Technologies, Hotel Leelaventure, HT Media, Jet Airways, Network18, OnMobile Global, Reliance Power, Tata Elxsi, Titan Company, United Spirits, Wonderla Holidays and Zandu Realty. Foreign institutional investors have been net sellers over the last one week, thereby putting pressure on an already weak market, said Karthikraj Lakshmanan, Senior Fund Manager – Equities, BNP Paribas Mutual Fund.

For the market which continues to witness selling pressure, it would be difficult to say how long this will continue. Among the indicators that it would look to for direction would be interest rate decision by the RBI, US Fed rate hike and the Budget for FY2017-18, said Kunj B Bansal, Executive Director & CIO — Equity, at Centrum Wealth Management.

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