More cloud than silver lining

Today's major news

Gujarat NRE Coke’s Q3 net profit doubles; the stock jumps 2.60%

HCL Technologies’ Q2 net profit down at Rs296.8 crore; the stock tumbles 5.68%

LIC Housing’s bottom line grew by 14%; the stock ends the day 0.40% lower

Shree Renuka Sugars approves bonus issue; the stock surges 2.22%

J. Kumar Infraprojects bags orders; the stock shots up 4.76%

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Post-market summary

Global signals

European indices were trading weak in morning trades, as energy stocks fell the most. At the time of writing this report, FTSE 100 was trading down marginal 0.24%.

All Asian indices closed lower. Nikkei hits four week closing low. SGX Nifty closed 9 points lower.

US stock futures opened higher on Friday after sharp sell-off in the last week.

Indian indices

The bears continue to hit back the market on fourth straight session. The Sensex opened 12 points lower at 16847 and continued its southward journey to touch the day’s low of 16705. However it recovered the losses in afternoon and touched the day’s high of 16877. Towards the close, lower than expected results of Mahindra & Mahindra drag the Sensex back to red zone. The Sensex ended the session 79 points lower at 16780 whereas Nifty shed 28 points to close at 5008.

Market sentiment

The market breadth was negative, with the losers outnumbering the gainers. Of the 2,913 stocks traded on the BSE, 1,747 stocks declined, 1,105 stocks advanced and 61 stocks ended unchanged.

Sectoral & stock screening

Overall, bears were in firm control. Only fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and capital goods drew investor interest with the BSE FMCG up by 1.14% and BSE CG 0.425 higher. Realty and automobile industry were hit the most with the BSE Realty and BSE Auto down by 2.88% and 2.14% respectively. The remaining indices were down by less than 2%.

Leveraging investor interest in FMCG stocks, Hindustan Unilever moved up 2.35% and ITC advanced 2.21%, occupying No2 and No 3 slot among the 30 Sensex stocks. The top slot went to Bharti Airtel that gained 2.86% for the day. Among laggards, Mahindra & Mahindra declined 5.24%, Jaiprakash Associates tumbled 3.27%, DLF lost 2.77%, and Tata Steel plunged 2.24%.

Viewing volumes

With investors seeing high probability of government selling its stake in the public sector unit Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilisers, over 1.06 crore shares changed hands on the BSE—the highest for any stock. This was followed by Ispat Industries (0.86 crore shares) wind turbine major Suzlon Energy (0.74 crore shares), Jai Corp (0.70 crore shares), India’s second biggest realty company Unitech (0.51 crore shares).