Sensex closed over 51 points lower on Monday while the Nifty settled flat amid a weak trend in global markets and continuous foreign fund outflows. Sensex fell 51.10 points or 0.08 per cent to end at 62,130.57. During the day, the 30 stock index tumbled 505.52 points or 0.81 per cent to 61,676.15. Nifty ended at 18,497.15, marginally higher by 0.55 points.
Top Losers
Asian Paints (1.94%), Infosys (1.39%), Titan (1.24%), Kotak Mahindra Bank (1.05%), Power Grid (0.74%) and Bharti Airtel (0.86%) were the top Sensex losers.
Top gainers
Tata Steel (1.18%), Nestle (1.13%), Dr Reddy’s (1.02%) , UltraTech Cement (0.80%), Wipro (0.86%) and HDFC Bank (0.75%) were among the top gainers.
Market breadth was negative with 1,764 shares closing higher against 1867 stocks falling on BSE. 173 shares were unchanged. Consumer durables shares were the top sectoral losers with their BSE index falling 396 points to 40,405. The BSE IT index too fell 168 points to 29,181.
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“A tepid start-off in the domestic market was flattened due to a recovery in banking, metals, and oil & gas, while continued selling in IT stocks weighed on the indices,” according to Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
Oil and gas and capital goods shares were the top sectoral gainers with their BSE indices rising 266 points and 184 points, respectively.
Market cap of BSE-listed firms settled at Rs 288.1 lakh crore. BSE mid cap and small cap indices rose 77 points and 106 points, respectively.
Sameet Chavan, Chief Analyst-Technical and Derivatives, Angel One, said, “With reference to our previous commentary, we had mentioned how crucial it is for Nifty to hold the sacrosanct support zone of 18,400 – 18,300. Today’s smart recovery after testing the midpoint of this range has certainly proved the significance of this key demand zone. Now, today’s low of 18345 should be considered as an important point and till the time, it remains unbroken, we would continue with our positive stance on the market. For the coming session, 18550 and 18650 are to be treated as immediate hurdles. The moment we overcome these barriers, we would see resumption of higher degree uptrend and then a path towards the next milestone of 19000 once again gets unfolded.”
The rupee slipped 25 paise to close at 82.53 against the US dollar. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened lower at 82.54 against the greenback and witnessed a high of 82.50 and a low of 82.74.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital markets on Friday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 158.01 crore, according to exchange data.
Previous session
Indian benchmark indices saw profit-booking on Friday led by losses in IT, capital goods and metal stocks. Sensex fell 389 points to end at 62181. Of 30 Sensex stocks, 18 ended in the red. Nifty too fell 112 points to end at 18,496, with 33 of its constituents closing in the red. HCL Tech (6.72% ), Tech Mahindra (3.58%), TCS (1.72%), Infosys (3.15%), Wipro (2.39%), and RIL (1.52%) were among the top Sensex losers.
Global markets
In Asia, equity markets in Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong ended lower. Equity exchanges in Europe were also trading lower in mid-session deals. The US markets had ended in the negative territory on Friday. International oil benchmark Brent crude dipped 0.80 per cent to $75.49 per barrel.
