India : Profit booking drags Sensex 105 pts; Axis tanks 6%, Reliance up
Indian equities extended sell-off in late trade on profit booking after a consolidation Friday, dragged by Axis Bank, Infosys and ICICI Bank. Weak global cues also weighed on sentiment. Benchmark indices had rallied 1 percent in previous session after Federal Reserve kept rates unchanged.
The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 104.91 points at 28668.22 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 35.90 points to 8831.55 while the broader markets outperformed benchmarks with the BSE Midcap rising 0.3 percent.
Experts expect the rangebound trade in next week due to expiry of September derivative contracts on Thursday.
“The range would be broader due to upcoming F&O expiry. At the same time, we expect mixed movement on stock specific front so traders should maintain a balanced trading approach till consolidation continues,” Jayant Manglik of Religare Securities says.
A catch-up trade is happening now on back of liquidity but this liquidity will not continue forever, believes Sridhar Sivaram of Enam Holdings.
Any dip in the market with expectations of earnings following through will be a buying opportunity, he says.
For the week, benchmark indices rebounded marginally. The Nifty gained half a percent and the Sensex was up 0.2 percent.
Axis Bank was the biggest loser on Sensex, down nearly 6 percent. Sources told CNBC-TV18 that stake sale by Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI) in Axis Bank is unlikely to happen anytime soon as the paperwork is yet to be completed. The Government of India through SUUTI held 11.94 percent stake in the country’s third largest private sector lender as of June 2016.
Infosys, ICICI Bank, Lupin, Tata Motors, SBI and Tata Steel were down 1-2.6 percent whereas Reliance Industries, HDFC, TCS, HDFC Bank and Dr Reddy’s Labs gained 0.4-1.4 percent.
Bharat Financial Inclusion rallied 4 percent after the company launched its qualified institutional placement (QIP) offer worth Rs 750 crore.
Websol Energy System was locked at 20 percent upper circuit at Rs 42.15 after the Reserve Bank approved its restructuring of outstanding foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs).
Morepen Laboratories shares surged 5.4 percent after a media report indicated that Piramal Enterprises is in talks to buy company’s OTC business. However, Morepen in its clarification note to exchanges said it denied the same.
On debut, L&T Technology Services closed at Rs 865, up 0.56 percent over issue price of Rs 860. The stock surged over 8 percent intraday.
The market breadth was in favour of declines as about 1494 shares slipped against 1168 advancing shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
On the global front, major Asian markets ended lower with the Japan’s Nikkei, China’s Shanghai and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng falling 0.3 percent each. At the timing of writing this article, European stocks were marginally lower as investors paused for breath after recent gains and digested the latest data on manufacturing and services activity in the euro zone.
