Equities reverse gains on heavy selling in banking, finance stocks

Mumbai, Sep 14 (IANS) The Indian stock market, which traded in the green for most part of the day on Monday, eventually gave up all its gains to end in the red.

The course reversal was driven by a selloff in banking and finance stocks. The BSE Banking index closed 1.56 per cent lower and the BSE Finance index was down 1.31 per cent.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said: “India VIX inched up higher by 3.4 per cent to 21.42. IT stocks outperformed today after HCL Tech guided for meaningfully better Q2FY21. Nifty IT index was the top gainer among sectoral indices, up 4.4 per cent — the most in two months and closing at a record high.”

“On the other hand, banking stocks were the top losers with the Nifty Bank Index down 1.8 per cent. Other major sectors that ended in green today were Realty, Media and Auto, while FMCG and Pharma were marginal losers,” he said.

The global cues were largely positive as hopes of a coronavirus vaccine were rekindled after AstraZeneca resumed its Phase-3 trial, while the sentiment was still cautious ahead of a big week of central bank meetings globally.

In the domestic market, although, Indian markets were mixed as mid-cap and small-cap stocks gained sharply.

“Investors were attracted towards mid/small-caps due to the SEBI mandate to multi-cap mutual funds to invest a minimum of 25 per cent each in large, mid and small-cap stocks. Small Cap Index posted its biggest 1-day gain in over 6 years,” Khemka said.

Going ahead, the market is likely to consolidate in the near term with a positive bias. All eyes would be on Central banks globally as the US Fed along with its peers the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and of Japan would meet this week.

Rahul Sharma, Market Strategist & Research Head, Equity99 Advisors, noted that on Monday, in an extremely volatile trading session, index-heavyweight stocks corrected towards the end as SEBI’s margin regulation will come into effect starting Tuesday.

He said that Nifty50 is likely to trade in the range of 11,300-11,600 levels.

On Monday, Nifty closed at 11,440.05, lower by 24.40 points, or 0.21 per cent, from the previous close of 11,464.45.

The BSE Sensex closed at 38,756.63, lower by 97.92 points, or 0.25 per cent, from the previous close of 38,854.55.

It had opened at 39,073.51 and touched an intra-day high of 39,230.16 and a low of 38,573.17 points.

–IANS

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