Indian headline indices ended in the red for the second straight session on Monday amid selling pressure in IT, metals, and pharma stocks. While Nifty ended at 22,122, down by 91 points or 0.41%, the 30-stock S&P BSE Sensex dropped over 350 points or 0.48% to settle at 72,790.
Top Gainers & Losers
The Nifty breadth remained skewed in favour of the bears with 37 stocks ending with cuts, while 12 managed to end in the black. One stock remained unchanged in the 50-stock pack. The top gainers were Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Power Grid, Adani Enterprises, Tata Consumer Products, and SBI Life Insurance, while Asian Paints, Apollo Hospitals, Hindalco Industries, Divi’s Laboratories and Tech Mahindra were among the top laggards.
Out of the 15 Nifty Sectoral indices, 12 finished in the negative zone with the Nifty IT index falling the most by over 1%. Nifty Metal, Nifty Consumer Durable, and Nifty FMCG were other top sectoral losers. Nifty Auto, Nifty Oil & Gas, and Nifty Realty ended in the green with marginal gains.
Expert Take
“The market took a breather after the recent runup as investors’ focus shifted from earnings to economic triggers this week. The US and India GDP data, eurozone inflation, and US jobless claim data will be influential economic numbers for the central bank to take a call on interest rates, which will dictate market sentiment in the near term. The uncertainty over demand and high US inventory pushed oil prices down,” Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, said.
Global Markets
Barring Japan’s Nikkei 225, which ended with gains of 0.35%, most other major Asian indices closed lower. China’s Shanghai Composite closed nearly 1% down while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index saw a half-a-percentage cut. Singapore’s FTSE Straits Times Index also closed lower by 0.43%.
Among European markets, Germany’s Dax was up 11 points or 0.07 and was trading at 17,430.90 at 3:50 pm India time. UK’s FTSE 100, French CAC 40, and IBEX 35 fell up to 0.43% around this time while the STOXX Europe 600 Index was down by 0.35%.
Currency Watch
The Indian rupee ended slightly stronger on Monday, aided by likely inflows, but dollar demand from state-run banks, possibly on behalf of importer clients, curbed further gains in the local unit, traders said.
The rupee closed at 82.89 against the US dollar, 0.06% higher than the previous session.
The dollar index was slightly lower at 103.8, while most Asian currencies weakened, with the Philippine peso down 0.3% and leading losses. The dollar-rupee pair continues to see dip-buying demand on moves towards 82.85-82.80, a Reuters report quoting a foreign exchange trader said.
State-run banks were seen bidding for dollars on Monday, likely on behalf of importer clients, the trader added.
Dollar demand from importers and likely intervention from the Reserve Bank of India has kept the rupee in a tight range over the last few trading sessions.
Crude Oil
Crude oil traded with a negative bias with Crude Oil futures trading at $76.140/bbl on Comex, down by $0.330 or 0.43%, while Brent Oil was hovering near the $80 mark, lower by $0.360 or 0.450%.
Tracking the international prices MCX March crude oil futures were trading at Rs 6,325/bbl, down by Rs 28 or 0.44%.
