The Indian equity benchmarks resumed their downward journey after a day’s pause on the previous session dragged by losses in banking and financial services shares. The benchmarks opened lower and extended losses in noon deals on the back of intense selling pressure in banking heavyweights like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank and Axis Bank. The Sensex fell as much as 577 points at the day’s lowest level and Nifty touched an intraday low of 14,597.85. However, late buying in IT shares helped benchmarks recover from intraday lows.
The Sensex ended 87 points lower at 49,771 and Nifty 50 index declined 8 points to settle at 14,736.
“Nifty failed to show resilience to stay above the level of 14,750. As of now, the short-term technical condition of the market shows that the expected range of the Nifty is likely to be between 14,410 and 14,900. While it is subject to further price action evolution, the Nifty is expected to gain momentum above 14,900. Traders are advised to refrain from building a fresh buying position until further decisive movement is seen,” Ashis Biswas, Head of Technical Research at CapitalVia Global Research told NDTV.
Rising Covid-19 cases also dampened investor sentiment. India reported 46,951 fresh coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours – biggest single-day jump since November 7. Total cases rose to 1,16,46,081, the government data showed. Maharashtra, which has logged the highest number of cases in India since the start of the pandemic, yet again saw its biggest single-day jump in fresh cases. 30,535 new infections on Sunday took the tally to 24,79,682. With 3,775 new infections, Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, also saw the highest-single day cases.
Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Bank index’s over 1.5 per cent decline. Nifty Financial Services, Media, PSU Bank and Private Bank indexes also fell over a per cent.
On the other hand, Nifty IT index was top gainer, the index ended 1.85 per cent decline. FMCG, pharma and metal shares also witnessed buying interest.
IndusInd Bank was top Nifty gainer, the stock fell 4.2 per cent to close at Rs 970. Power Grid, ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Life, ONGC, Reliance Industries, State Bank of India, SBI Life and Larsen & Toubro also declined between 1-3 per cent.
On the flipside, Adani Ports, Britannia Industries, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Sun Pharma, Hindalco, Infosys, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Hindustan Unilever and HCL Technologies were among the top gainers.
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