Profit Booking In IT, Metal Stocks Dents Intra-Day Gains; Realty Stocks Outperform

Dragged by profit booking in Metal and Technology stocks, the Indian equity markets ended in the red on Wednesday, September 1. However, in the morning trade, Sensex and Nifty had scaled new lifetime highs, mainly boosted by gains in the heavyweight banking stocks. Overall, the market sentiments remain positive amid better domestic cues, said experts.

The 30-share pack Sensex ended lower by 214.18 points at 57,338.21 with 17 declines and 13 advances in the overall trading session on Wednesday. Shares of M7M, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv, and HDFC were the top laggards for the index as they declined between 1-3 per cent each. On the flipside, Axis Bank and Asian Paints were the top performers, advancing over two and three per cent, respectively.

Similarly, the Nifty-50 index closed down by 55.95 points at 17,076.25. The index made a fresh high of 17,225.75 in the morning trade today.

Sectorally, Metal and IT were the top losers among all other sectors as traders booked profits after a strong rally in the previous few sessions. Both IT and Metal indices were down over a per cent each dragged by shares of TCS, Infosys, Tata Steel, and NALCO as they dipped 1-2 per cent each in their respective spaces.

On the other hand, the Nifty Realty index clearly outperformed all other sectors, adding over six per cent led by stocks of Oberoi Realty, Brigade Enterprises, and Sobha as they gained more than 10 per cent each. Experts were of a view that the street is expecting something good in the coming days and the Realty index has also seen a breakout which could further lead to fresh highs in the pack.

Speaking to BW Businessworld, Gaurav Garg, Head of Research, CapitalVia Global Research, said, “In my opinion, expectation of good sales in Q1FY22 is what street is sensing specially in metro-based realty companies after lockdown 2.0. Moreover, technically realty index was in consolidation and has now given a breakout, we might see nice move in upside as index might touch 52-week high soon. However, today’s extra-ordinary move is sensing some good news ahead of big announcement by street.”

In another positive today, the GST collections for the month of August stood at Rs 1.12 lakh crore, suggesting a better state of the economy in the country. The numbers are 30 per cent higher than that of the same month in the preceding year.

In the overall market breadth today, around 1461 shares advanced, 1637 shares declined, and 150 shares remained unchanged.