Sensex loses 274 pts, Nifty below 8350; banks, IT, pharma drag
The market ended in red after gaining for the last two days. The Nifty closed below 8350 ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as next President Of the United States. The Sensex closed down 274.10 points or 1 percent at 27034.50 and the Nifty slipped 85.75 points or 1 percent at 8349.35. About 819 shares advanced, 1870 shares declined, and 310 shares were unchanged.Pharma and oil gas sectors underformed this week while FMCG stocks did better than other indices.
While Bank Nifty was a huge drag on the market today after the disappointing Q3 results by Axis Bank midcap earnings too weighed in. Axis Bank ended 7 percent lower. However, most analysts are betting on the bank but are concerned about its loan growth, fee income pressures and failure of any improvement on slippages.
Indranil Sengupta, Co-head of India Research, Bank of America Merrill Lynch says improvements in earnings emerging out of better earnings from banks will trigger Sensex to hit 29000 levels by December. He expects a weak global environment and says that it will put pressure on emerging markets like India. This will adversely affect portfolio flows and rupee may also depreciate to 70 per dollar, said Sengupta.
Other losers in the banking sector were SBI and ICICI Bank. Top losers in the Sensex include Adani Ports, Tata Steel and BHEL. Gainers in the Sensex were Bharti Airtel, Asain Paints, ITC, Bajaj Auto and HDFC Bank
India-based car parts maker and engineering group Motherson Sumi Systems was up as it has agreed to buy Finnish truck wire maker PKC Group for 571 million euros (USD 609 million). Motherson has offered 23.55 euros per PKC share, representing a 51 percent premium to PKC’s closing price.
Adani Power, one of the largest private power generation companies, has posted a consolidated loss of Rs 325.3 crore in quarter ended December 2016 compared with profit of Rs 104 crore in corresponding quarter of previous fiscal. The bottomline was impacted by lower revenue & operational income and higher finance cost. Revenue during the quarter fell 6.1 percent to Rs 5,813 crore compared with Rs 6191 crore in same quarter last fiscal due to lower plant load factor.
Meanwhile, MindTree ended 2 percent down post December quarter results. Analysts are concerned about its valuations.
