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Benchmark indices, which began the week on a negative note and continued the slide till Thursday, arrested the trend to close in the green on Friday.
Market, after trading in the flat-to-negative territory during the first half on Friday amid lack of any triggers, managed to claw back in the afternoon trade, led by Reliance and a recovery in IT and FMCG stocks, which end flat.
The BSE Sensex closed at 52,484.67, up 166.07 points or 0.32 per cent. It hit an intraday high of 52,527.90 and a low of 52,177.68. The Nifty 50 closed near the day’s high of 15,738.35 at 15,722.20, up 42.20 points or 0.27 per cent. It hit an intraday low of 15,635.95.
The breadth of the market continued to remain positive with 1,907 stocks advancing, 1,305 declining and 136 remaining unchanged on the BSE. As many as 505 securities hit the upper circuit and 276 the lower circuit; 444 hit their 52-week high while 23 touched a 52-week low.
Binod Modi, Head Strategy at Reliance Securities, said, “Domestic equities continued to trade in a range-bound with benchmark indices witnessing marginal gains. While financials, pharma and realty indices recovered modestly today, profit booking was visible across metals and FMCG counters.”
Divi’s Labs, Reliance, ICICI Bank, Coal India and Tata Consumer were the top gainers on the Nifty 50 while Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Britannia, PowerGrid and Grasim were the top laggards.
Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said, "Amid lack of domestic triggers, main indices traded flattish and ended with minor gains, while broad market maintained its optimism driven by mid & small-caps. Domestic banking stocks gained although RBI in its Financial Stability Report indicates that Gross NPA percentage could climb to a baseline of 9.8 per cent by March 2022. The rapid increase of Covid cases globally is having an effect on the international market. Also on the global front, bourses are closely awaiting the release of the US job data to take clues regarding the US Fed’s monetary policy stance."
Metals lose shine
On the sectoral front, financials, pharma and realty were able to retain gains while IT, metals and FMCG stocks faced pressure. Metals remained under pressure through the day.
Nifty Metal was down 1.49 per cent while Nifty IT ended flat, up 0.02 per cent while Nifty FMCG was down 0.05 per cent.
Nifty Pharma was up 0.60 per cent. Nifty Bank and Nifty Financial Services were up 0.36 per cent and 0.38 per cent, respectively. Nifty Private Bank was up 0.23 per cent. However, Nifty PSU Bank was down 0.01 per cent. Nifty Realty was up 0.53 per cent.
Broader indices
As for the broader indices, small-cap stocks outperformed the benchmarks while Midcap stocks faced pressure during closing hours ending flat.
Nifty Mid-cap 50 was down 0.01 per cent while Nifty Small-cap 50 was up 1.29 per cent. The S&P BSE Midcap was up 0.05 per cent while the S&P BSE Smallcap was up 1.01 per cent.
The volatility index was down 5.84 per cent to 12.09.
“Notably, midcap and smallcap indices continued to outperform as improved earnings visibility attracted investors towards this space. Further, volatility index contracted by over 5 per cent today,” said Modi.
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