Informist, Friday, Mar 11, 2022
By Vaibhavi
MUMBAI – Domestic benchmark indices witnessed a choppy session today as investors exercised some caution amid subdued global cues, failed talks between Russia and Ukraine, soaring inflation and hawkish reactions of central banks to tame the same.
As investors searched for directions, the benchmark indices swung between gains and losses throughout the session.
However, gains in banks, and metals and pharmaceuticals companies helped offset losses in automobiles and information technology firms, resulting in the benchmark indices recouping all of their intraday losses and ending in the green.
Today, Nifty 50 opened marginally lower but recouped its losses to hit a high of 16694.40 points. However, selling pressures at higher levels pulled the index down to a low of 16470.90 points before eventually recouping losses and ending 0.2% higher at 16630.45 points.
Correspondingly, the BSE Sensex ended marginally higher, 0.2% at 55550.30 points, after moving between a high of 55833.95 points and a low of 55049.95 points throughout the session.
With the ongoing geopolitical crisis pushing up inflation levels and consumer prices in the US touching a four-decade high in February, fears of the US Federal Reserve taking a much aggressive stance to tame the same in its monetary policy meeting next week resurfaced.
On the other hand, the European Central Bank, with a hawkish tone, kept interest rates unchanged but announced plans to speed up its exit from the asset-purchasing programme.
Alongside, Russia widened its attack on Ukraine to new cities and also redeployed troops near Kyiv after talks between the two countries failed to reach consensus.
All these factors dented investor sentiment and prompted them to keep away from placing any aggressive bets going into the weekend and rather wait for further developments.
After the strong recovery during the week, the domestic market trend turned cautious today, as focus shifted to next week’s upcoming issues such as inflation, Bank of England & the US Federal Reserve's monetary policies, said Vinod Nair, head of research, Geojit Financial Services.
However, positive developments like diplomatic progress on war, revert of commodity price and in-line rate hike decision, stock market trend should be stable and healthy as recent negative factors are largely factored in the price correction, Nair added.
Sachin Shah, fund manager, Emkay Investment Managers, on the other hand, believes the conflict between Russia and Ukraine to be a short term issue providing a good scope to invest on a bottoms-up basis in mid-cap and small-cap segments.
The broader market even outperformed the headline index today as all small- and mid-cap indices on the NSE ended 0.7-0.9% higher.
Among frontline sectors, the metal pack was one of the major sectoral gainers with select metal companies gaining 1-3% as commodity prices inched higher after cooling down from their recent highs on Thursday. This lifted the Nifty Metal index to end 0.5% higher.
Most pharmaceutical companies rose today amid a sectoral churn given the weakness in other frontline sectors due to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Demand for pharmaceutical products are less vulnerable to any developments around the ongoing geopolitical tensions and this lifted most pharmaceutical majors up 1-6%, which pulled the Nifty Pharma index 2.5% higher.
On the flipside, automobile companies fell prey to profit booking as an on-year decline in automobile sales across categories in February dented outlook for the sector. This saw the Nifty Auto index ending 0.4% lower.
* Among Nifty 50 stocks, 28 rose and 22 fell
* Among Sensex stocks, 15 rose and 15 fell
* On the NSE, 1,269 stocks rose, 482 fell and 55 were unchanged
* On the BSE, 2,070 stocks rose, 1269 fell and 119 were unchanged
* Nifty Pharma: Up 2.5%; Nifty Bank: Up 0.2%; Nifty IT: Down 0.1%
BSE National Stock Exchange
Sensex: 55550.30 points, up 85.91 pts (0.2%) Nifty 50: 16630.45 points, up 35.55 pts (0.2%)
S&P BSE Sensitive Index Nifty 50
Lifetime High: 62245.43 (Oct 19) : Lifetime High: 18604.45 (Oct 19)
Record Close High: 61765.59 (Oct 18) : Record Close High: 18477.05 (Oct 18)
2022 1st day close: 59183.22 (Jan 3) : 2022 1st day close: 17625.70 (Jan 3)
2022 Closing High: 61308.91 (Jan 17) : 2022 Closing High: 18308.10 (Jan 17)
2022 Closing Low: 52842.75 (Mar 7) : 2022 Closing Low: 15863.15 (Mar 7)
2022 High (intraday): 61385.48 (Jan 17) : 2022 High (intraday): 18321.55 (Jan 17)
2022 Low (intraday): 52260.82 (Mar 8) : 2022 Low (intraday): 15671.45 (Mar 8)
2021 Closing High: 61305.95 (Oct 14) : 2021 Closing High: 18338.55 (Oct 14)
2021 Closing Low: 46285.77 (Jan 29) : 2021 Closing Low: 13634.60 (Jan 29)
2021 High (intraday): 61353.25 (Oct 14) : 2021 High (intraday): 18350.75 (Oct 14)
2021 Low (intraday): 46160.46 (Jan 29) : 2021 Low (intraday): 13596.75 (Jan 29)
2020 Closing High: 47751.33 (Dec 31) : 2020 Closing High: 13981.95 (Dec 30)
2020 Closing Low: 25981.24 (Mar 23) : 2020 Closing Low: 7610.25 (Mar 23)
2020 High (intraday): 47896.97 (Dec 31) : 2020 High (intraday): 14024.85 (Dec 31)
2020 Low (intraday): 25638.90 (Mar 24) : 2020 Low (intraday): 7511.10 (Mar 24)
2019 High (intraday): 41809.96 (Dec 20) : 2019 High (intraday): 12293.90 (Dec 20)
2019 Low (intraday): 35287.16 (Feb 19) : 2019 Low (intraday): 10583.65 (Jan 29)
2018 High (intraday): 38938.91(Aug 28)) : 2018 High(intraday): 11760.20 (Aug 28)
2018 Low (intraday): 32483.8 (Mar 23) : 2018 Low (intraday): 9951.9 (Mar 23)
2017 High (intraday): 34005.37 (Dec 26) : 2017 High(intraday): 10515.10 (Dec 26)
End
US$1 = 76.55 rupees
Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj
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