Sensex ends rangebound session mildly higher, Nifty fails to hold 9800; Midcap dips
It was a lacklustre session for the market on Tuesday despite positive global cues. Investors looked for more triggers, especially after digesting Geopolitical tensions and Infosys crisis.
The 30-share BSE Sensex opened sharply higher after two-day fall but immediately wiped out more than half of gains and remained rangebound for rest of the session. It rose 33 points to close at 31,291.85 after losing 537 points in previous two consecutive sessions.
The 50-share NSE Nifty closed higher but failed to hold 9,800 level, up 11.20 points at 9,765.55.
Today’s consolidation and failure of the Nifty to hold 9,800 level indicated that 9,700 is not a strong support and there could be more downside, Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.
The index has to break 9,870 level on upside to attract bulls, he feels.
Mitessh Thakkar of miteshthacker.com also said the current consolidation is a clear indication of further fall in market.
The broader markets underperformed benchmarks on weak market breadth. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices lost 0.4 percent each as about two shares declined for every share rising on the exchange.
Infosys rebounded 0.4 percent today after losing 14.5 percent in previous two consecutive sessions due to Vishal Sikka’s resignation as CEO & MD. Sources told CNBC-TV18 that Infosys co-chairman Ravi Venkatesan, in a meeting with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and senior finance ministry officials, gave an assurance of high corp governance standards at the company. He promised FM that things should normalise soon.
Lupin was up 2.3 percent on receiving establishment inspection report (EIR) from US FDA for Aurangabad facility post inspection in April. Dr Reddy’s Labs rallied 2.7 percent as the company outlicensed commercialisation rights of DFD-06 (a topical high-potency steroid) to Encore Dermatology.
ONGC board gave in-principal approval to the acquisition of 51.11 percent shares of HPCL. Former gained 1 percent and later rallied nearly 4 percent.
Sun Pharma and Axis Bank, among others, rose 1-2 percent whereas NTPC and Hero Motocorp lost over 2 percent followed by TCS, L&T, Asian Paints and L&T.
Among midcaps, REC, Motherson Sumi, Manappuram Finance, Bharat Financial, Tata Global, Religare Enterprises, Jaypee Infratech and Videocon Industries fell up to 10 percent.
Westlife Development rallied 8 percent after McDonald’s terminated agreement with Connaught Plaza Restaurants. HCL Infosystems surged 9.4 percent on pact with Apple India for distribution of iPhone & other Apple products in India.
European markets were higher as France’s CAC, Germany’s DAX and Britain’s FTSE gained 0.6 percent each at the time of writing this article. Asian markets also ended higher as investors turned their attention to the US Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole at the end of the week.
