Despite a positive start, the Indian equity market succumbed to intense selling towards the end recording its fifth straight dip. Earlier in the day, the Nifty had risen to the 5750 levels but came tumbling down as selling pressure resumed in Realty, Power, Capital Goods, Auto and Oil & gas stocks.
The broader indices witnessed further sell-off as the BSE Small-Cap index and BSE Mid- Cap index ended lower by 1% and 1.23% respectively.
Bucking the negative trend were the Consumer Durables, Teck and IT stocks.
Finally, BSE Sensex closed at 18792, down 91 points over the previous close. It had earlier touched a day’s high of 19082 and a day’s low of 18756. It opened at 18926.
The NSE Nifty closed 5,659, down 36 points over the previous close. It earlier touched a day’s high of 5,757 and a day’s low of 5,647. It opened at 5,705.
“Given the domestic political uncertainty, Cyprus crisis and next week being a truncated one on account of Holi and Good Friday, market may enter into a consolidation phase. The near term support for the Nifty is placed at the 200 day moving average which is placed at 5610 which also coincides with long term rising trend line,” says Amar Ambani, Head of research, IIFL.
RIL, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Cipla, SBI, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, ONGC, BHEL were among losers in Sensex and Nifty.
Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, ICICI Bank, Jindal Steel, Coal India, Gail India were among gainers in Sensex and Nifty.
The advance decline ratio was in favour of bears. 1922 stocks declined against 946 advancing stocks, while 119 stocks remained unchanged.
The INDIA VIX was down 1% to close at 16.51. It hit a day’s high of 17.24 and day’s low of 16.66.
Stocks which hit 52-week high during the week were Asian Paints, Aeonian Invest, Fomento Res, Rutron Intl and Sam Leaseco.
Stocks which hit 52-week low during the week were ABB, Ambalal Sarabhai, Apple Finance, Bajaj Hind and Force Motors
Bharti Airtel surged by 6% to close at Rs297. The telecom giant launched its fourth generation (4G) mobile broadband services in Panchkula, Mohali and Chandigarh.
The stock fell over 5% in the previous session after a court summon was sent to promoter Sunil Mittal for his alleged role in the 2G scam case.
SKS Microfinance crashed nearly 20% during intra-day trades and close lower by 7.7% at Rs123.
Tata Motors plunged 4% to close at ~Rs273 after reports stated that tough emission norms in China could potentially hit its luxury car maker unit Jaguar Land Rover.
MTNL was down by 4.2% to close at Rs18. the state-run telecom firm said the decision to raise Rs30bn through sovereign guarantee bonds in its board meeting on March 25.
The Asian markets were trading almost higher. The Shanghai Composite index in China was up 0.3%, the Nikkei index in Japan was up 1.3%, Straits Times was up 0.6% and Taiwan index was up 0.2%.
However, the Hang Seng index in Hong and Kospi index declined by 0.2% and 0.44% respectively.
The European markets were trading lower on Thursday, the FTSE index in UK was down 0.8%, the CAC index in France was down 1.1% and the DAX index in Germany was trading lower by 1%.