Sharp Intra-day Recovery: Sensex Slumps 85 Pts, Nifty Settles Below 17,100
Indian equity benchmark indices recovered sharply in intra-day trade on Monday, erasing early losses. Investors tracked weaknesses in Asian stocks and a selloff on Wall Street on Friday. Also, a 50 bps rate hike is expected from the US Federal Reserve as it meets on Wednesday.
After falling around 600 points in intra-day trade, the 30-share pack Sensex was down 84.88 points or 0.15 per cent to close at 56,975.99. Its broader peer NSE Nifty also fell 33.40 points or 0.20 per cent, settling below the 17,100 mark.
“Early losses were mostly in reaction to the slump seen on Wall Street on Friday, but markets recovered most of its early losses as investors covered some shorts ahead of the trading holiday on Tuesday. The robust GST collections for April also calmed the nerves of investors, who are already facing the brunt of the ongoing war and volatile oil prices. Investors are also keenly awaiting the outcome of the US Fed's monetary policy announcement scheduled later this week,” said Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities.
On the 30-share BSE index, Titan, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Maruti, Asian Paints, L&T, SBI and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the top losers.
IndusInd Bank advanced 4.17 per cent on the back of strong quarterly results. The bank’s consolidated net profit for the January-March quarter rose 51 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to Rs 1,401 crore.
Nifty's IT and auto sub-indices were among the top segment losers, falling more than 1 per cent each.
Some losses on the Nifty 50 were capped by Coal India and HDFC Bank, advancing 2.6 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively.
The overall market breadth stood weak as 1,244 shares advanced while 2,218 declined on BSE.
“Post gap down opening, the indices were resilient to correct further and it consolidated within a range for most part of the day. The banking space showed some relative strength and recovered the losses which led to a recovery in Nifty as well and the index ended with a marginal loss of a quarter of a percent above 17050,” said Ruchit Jain, Lead Research, 5paisa.com.
Indian markets will remain shut on Tuesday due to Eid (Id-Ul-Fitr).
“Technically, the line in the sand is at Nifty’s support at 16807 mark and below the same, the index could swiftly move to 16597 with aggressive inter-month targets at 14251-14500 zone. The index is likely to find strength only above 17607 mark on closing basis. To affirm bullishness, Nifty needs to close above its 200 DMA at 17233 mark,” said Prashanth Tapse, Vice President (Research), Mehta Equities.
