Sensex and Nifty traded range-bound on Thursday, the F&O Expiry day, amid weakness in global counterparts as increase coronavirus cases and International Monetary Fund's (IMF) growth forecast kept sentiments negative worldwide. Extending fall for the second straight day, Sensex closed 26 points lower at 34,842 and Nifty fell 16 points to 10,288. Yesterday, Sensex closed 561 points lower at 34,868 and Nifty fell 165 points lower to 10,305.
Infosys, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Asian Paints, ICICI Bank and HDFC were among the top losers in Sensex pack. On the other hand, Bajaj Auto, ITC, NTPC, UltraTech Cement and Reliance Industries were among the top gainers.
IMF projected sharp contraction of 4.5% for the Indian economy in 2020, a "historic low," citing the unprecedented coronavirus pandemic that has nearly stalled all economic activities.
IMF sees global growth at -4.9% in 2020, 1.9 percentage points below the April 2020 World Economic Outlook (WEO) forecast.
Sector wise, gains in FMCG, healthcare and select banks were capped by losses in IT, oil & gas and realty.
Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services said, "Following the F&O expiry, our markets were also volatile and undecided, finally ending with a negative bias for the day. This was also in sync with generally lacklustre global markets. Cautiousness was visible as the IMF revised their GDP growth outlook for India and the infections continued to rise."
Meanwhile, companies set to announce their earnings are Ashok Leyland, IDFC, CONCOR, HAL, Apollo Hospitals, IOB, Bank of India, ION Exchange, Indiabulls Ventures, Endurance Tech, JB Chemicals, ICRA among others.
Expressing views on Nifty's near-term outlook, Rohit Singre, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities said, "Index managed to close a week below 200 WMA at 10,289 with gains of nearly half percent and formed a Doji candle pattern on the weekly chart. Now for coming week immediate and good support is formed near 10,200-10,100 zone if managed to hold above-said levels then we may see some pull back again towards good resistance of 10,500-10,550 zone and once we see a decisive break above 10,550 then strong northward move is possible."
On the currency front, Indian rupee ended stronger at 75.67 per dollar as against the earlier closing of 75.72 per dollar.
Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus cases worldwide has crossed 94.08 lakh and the death toll has topped 4.82 lakh. In India, the death toll due to the disease rose to 14,894 and the number of infections spiked to 4,73,105.
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