Mumbai, Feb 7: Rising crude oil prices, sell-off by FIIs, and fears of liquidity taps running dry amid monetary policy tightening, hit benchmark indices on Monday. The frontline S&P BSE Sensex gyrated 1,346 points intra-day and ended 1,024 points, or 1.75 per cent, lower at 57,621. On the NSE, the Nifty50 breached below the 17,150-mark intra-day but settled at 17,214, down 303 points or 1.73 per cent.
L&T, down 3.6 per cent, was the top laggard on the Sensex index, followed by HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance, HDFC, Bajaj Finserv, Kotak Bank, Titan, and ICICI Bank. Only 5 stocks ended higher on the 30-pack index, including Power Grid (up 2 per cent), Tata Steel, SBI, NTPC, and Ultratech Cement.
“Monday’s weakness can be attributed to heavy selling by FIIs amid rising US bond yields and crude oil prices. FIIs’ favorite names and heavyweights like HDFC twins, ICICI Bank, Infosys, Kotak Bank, and Reliance Industries saw sharp cuts. Technically, the Nifty has slipped below its 50-DMA, which is not a good sign. However, 17,200 is a support level where we can expect some recovery. A breach can drag the index towards 17,000/16,800 levels. On the upside, 17,450-17,500 will act as a strong resistance,” said Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart.
In the broader markets, the MidCap and SmallCap indices on the BSE outperformed the headline indices and ended 1.3 per cent and 0.8 per cent lower, respectively.
Among individual stocks, Torrent Power, Apollo Hospitals, NAM-India, Tata Consumer Products, Jubilant Industries, D-Link India, WPIL, and Ujjivan Financial Services were among the worst hit sectors, down up to 15 per cent.
On the upside, Godrej Properties, Adani Power, Oil India, PI Industries, Bank of India, Eveready, GNFC, and Credit Access Gramin dazzled on the bourses, climbing up to 14 per cent. Among the lot, shares of Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals Limited (GNFC) hit a 52-week high at Rs 523.25, on rallying 15 per cent on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in Monday’s intra-day trade in an otherwise subdued market after the company reported best ever quarterly performance in the December quarter (Q3FY22).
That apart, shares of FDC surged 8 per cent to Rs 319 on the BSE in Monday’s intra-day trade after the company said that its board will meet on February 9, 2022 to consider the proposal for buyback of equity shares of the company through tender offer route.
