Sensex Falls 300 Points, Nifty At 16,450; Tata Steel Down 8%, CarTrade Tech 9%

Impacted by weak global cues, Sensex on Friday, August 20 saw a major decline during the intraday trade to finally end at 300 points. Heavy selling in banking stocks dragged the markets lower with the Sensex slipping below 55,350 and Nifty below 16,500. At close, the BSE Sensex was down 300.17 points at 55,329.32 with just seven advances and 23 declines in the 30-share pack. Shares of Tata Steel plunged the most in the intraday session, the stock closed down by eight percent at Rs 1,375.80. Sun Pharma, Dr Reddys Labs and SBI were other losers, declining 2-3 per cent each.

Market experts said a variety of reasons impacting the international markets may be directly spooking the Indian stock markets. These include the rise in Delta variant cases of covid in China, Australia, and several other countries. The worsening flood situation in China and its impact on the trade, debt situation etc. may also have contributed to the selling of certain categories of stocks here, experts said. 

The Nifty-50 index also closed at 16,450.50, down 118.35 points. The Nifty Bank index shed over a percent dragged by IDFC First Bank(-6.38 per cent), Bandhan Bank (-4.20 per cent), Federal Bank(-4.02 per cent). The broader markets also felt the heat as both BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices closed lower by a per cent each. Jindal Steel, Vodafone Idea, and SAIL were the top drags in the Midcap space declining over seven per cent each.

The debutant CarTrade Tech dipped over nine per cent in the day's trade after listing at a discount of 1.1 per cent at Rs 1,600 against its issue price of Rs 1,618. The stock made a day's low of Rs 1,475.

Experts are of a view that the correction in the last two sessions can also lead to further possibilities of more downside in the coming sessions. However, 16350 is an important support level in the short term, if the market sustains above this level, expect the market to remain positive and gain momentum, leading to an upside projection till 16700-16750 level, they explained.

Gaurav Udani, CEO & Founder, ThincRedBlu Securities, suggested, "Traders having long positions should keep strict stop loss to book profits and protect capital. New longs in Nifty should be considered only on closing above 16550 levels with higher than average volumes."

In the overall market breadth on Friday, 2407 shares declined, 728 shares advanced and 117 shares were unchanged.

Ruchit Purohit

BW Reporters The author is a Trainee Journalist at BW Businessworld based in Mumbai. He tracks the Markets and related news.