Sensex tanks 984 points, ends at 48,782; financials crack; Nifty Pharma up 1%
It was a freaky Friday for Dalal Street investors as bears came roaring amid weakness in Asian markets and unabated rise in Covid-19 cases along with hiccups in vaccination drive back home. Profit booking too weighed on markets following four straight sessions of gains that led to a 4 per cent rally in the benchmark indices this week.
The benchmark indices eased 2 per cent today amid massive selling in all but pharma sector. The Nifty Bank and Financial Services indices took the sharpest knock and dropped 3 per cent each while the Nifty FMCG, Auto, IT, and Realty indices slipped up to 1.5 per cent. The Nifty Pharma index bucked the trend and gained settled 1 per cent higher.
In effect, NSE’s 50-share index erased 264 points to close at 14,631 levels dragged mainly by HDFC (down 4.2 per cent), HDFC Bank (4 per cent), ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints, M&M, TCS, Tata Motors, and Adani Ports. The losses were, however, capped by gains in ONGC (4 per cent), Coal India, Divi’s Labs, Grasim, and Indian Oil Corporation.
On the BSE, the Sensex index nursed losses in 25 of the 30 constituents and ended at 48,782 levels today, down 983.5 points.
On a weekly basis, both the frontline indices snapped their 3-week losing streak and added around 2 per cent higher each.
SmallCap scrips, meanwhile, remained resilient in the weak market with stocks such as Uttam Sugar, Tata Metaliks,Jay Bharat Maruti, and Confidence Petroleum India rallying between 174 per cent and 16 per cent. At the index level, the S&P BSE SmallCap settled just 0.07 per cent lower.
The MidCap index, on the other hand, slipped 0.65 per cent.
Shares of AU Small Finance Bank plummeted 10 per cent to hit a low of Rs 1,013 on the BSE on Friday as the lender’s asset quality worsened in the March quarter of FY21 (Q4FY21). In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was down 1 per cent at 1:12 PM. According to the financial statement of the bank, the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) spiked to 4.25 per cent of gross advances as of March 31, 2021, from 1.68 per cent in the same period last year.
Shares of Tata Coffee rallied over 9 per cent in Friday’s session to hit a 52-week high of Rs 139.70 on the BSE after the company posted a strong set of results for the quarter ended March 2021. The company on Thursday posted a more than two-fold jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 57.37 crore for the fourth quarter of 2020-21 fiscal on strong income, as against a net profit of Rs 24.05 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
IndiaMART InterMESH tanks 8% on weak operational performance in March quarter. The bottomline, however, showed healthy growth. The net profit jumped 26 per cent YoY to Rs 56 crore compared with Rs 44 crore in the previous year period. For the year ended March 31, 2021, IndiaMart InterMesh recorded a 89.82 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 279.80 crore in FY21 as against Rs 147.40 crore in FY20. Revenue from operations gained 4.80 per cent to Rs 669.60 crore in FY21 over FY20.
Shares of information technology (IT) services major Wipro jumped 4.5 per cent to hit a 52-week high of Rs 511.95 on the BSE in intra-day trade on Friday after the company revised its IT services revenue guidance for the quarter ended June 2021. Wipro in an exchange filing earlier today said it expects revenue from its IT services business to be in the range of $2,324-$2,367 million during the first quarter of FY22. This translates to a sequential growth of 8-10 per cent.
Here are some picks from the week gone by.
