Indices end lower for 2nd day; Sensex drops 441 points but up 2.5% this week
Domestic markets snapped the streak of weekly losses even as sombre global mood butchered bulls at the bourses for two days straight. A rise in Brent crude prices along with a jump in bond yields acted as the double whammy on stocks on Friday, pushing benchmark equity indices down by nearly a per cent. However, a tilt towards defensives towards the fag-end of the session lifted markets off-lows.
Among headline indices, the S&P BSE Sensex ended at 50,405 levels today, erasing 441 points or 0.87 per cent. From the day’s high of 50,886, the index tumbled 726 points to hit a low of 50,160. Financial, pharma, and IT counters were the top drags on the index today with IndusInd Bank, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HCL Tech, Bajaj Finserv, Infosys, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Sun Pharma, and HDFC leading the list of losers. All these stocks were down in the range of 1.7 per cent to 5 per cent.
On the upside, ONGC, Maruti Suzuki, Nestle India, Titan, Reliance Industries, and L&T supported the markets with up to 2.5 per cent gains.
On the NSE, the Nifty50 settled above the 14,900-mark at 14,938, down 143 points or 0.95 per cent. 38 of the 50 stocks declined on the Nifty today, while 12 advanced.
All the sectoral indices were painted red amid across-the-board sell-off. The Nifty PSU index plunged 4 per cent on the NSE, followed by the Nifty Metal index (down 3 per cent), and the Nifty IT and Realty indices (down 2 per cent each). The Nifty Bank, Auto, FMCG, and Financial Services indices slipped between 0.5 per cent and 1.7 per cent.
In the broader markets, the S&P BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices dropped 1.9 per cent and 1.5 per cent, respectively.
The overall market breadth favoured bears with 1,904 stocks ending the day in the red, compared with around 1,083 stocks that advanced on the BSE.
Shares of CSB Bank, on Friday, rallied 16 per cent to a fresh 52-week high of Rs 273.95 on the BSE in an otherwise weak market on the back of heavy volumes. The stock surpassed its previous 52-week high of Rs 270, touched on November 10, 2020. It hit an all-time high level of Rs 314 on December 5, 2019.
Shares of Laurus Labs were trading 5 per cent lower at Rs 349 on the BSE in intra-day trade on Friday, down 9 per cent from Thursday’s high, after the promoters of the firm sold 1.3 per cent stake in the company for Rs 258 crore via the open market to release pledged shares. “Dr Satyanarayana Chava, founder promoter, CEO & ED, sold 5.2 million equity shares of the company in the stock market at an average price of Rs 368.59, per share, aggregating to Rs 191.67 crore,” Laurus Labs said in a press release.
Shares of Quick Heal Technologies, on Friday, soared up to 8 per cent to a fresh 52-week high of Rs 187 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), in an otherwise weak market, after the company said its board will consider a share buyback on March 10, 2021. The security software provider’s stock has advanced 9.1 per cent in the last one month (till Thursday) as compared to a 1.2 per cent rise in the benchmark Nifty50 index.
Shares of Vodafone Idea (Vi) slipped over 4 per cent to Rs 10.53 on the BSE in intra-day trade on Friday amid reports that the debt-laden telco’s fund-raising plans have landed in a soup. Vi’s talks with the Oak Hill consortium have not led to a binding agreement as there were unresolved issues around funding terms, guarantees and claims to the struggling telco’s assets in case of a payment default, a report by Economic Times stated.
Shares of Heranba Industries made a strong debut on the bourses on Friday with the stock listing at Rs 900, a 43.5 per cent premium over its issue price of Rs 627 per share on the BSE. The stock extended its gains and traded as high as Rs 944.95 in intra-day deals. The initial public offer of the Gujarat-based firm was subscribed 83 times. The institutional investor portion was subscribed 67 times. The wealthy investor portion by 271 times, and retail investors subscribed 11 times the portion reserved for them.
Here are some picks from the week gone by.
