Sensex ends 2-day losing streak, midcaps, smallcaps underperform; check what moved markets today

The 30-share Sensex ended 356 points up from day’s low at 38,417, while the NSE’s Nifty managed to end just above 11,350

After swinging between gains and losses throughout the trading session, Indian stock markets ended with marginal gains on Monday. The 30-share Sensex ended 356 points up from day’s low at 38,417, while the NSE’s Nifty 50 managed to end just above 11,350. Index heavyweights such as Tata Consultancy Services, Housing Development Finance Corporation, ITC and Infosys, contributed to the indices’ gain today. “Indian markets traded with volatility and finally ended the day with a positive bias. Virus infections continued to rise unabated and this fear combined with a sell-off seen in the US markets, in the previous trading session, served to bring in doubts regarding the continuation of the momentum seen in recent times in the market,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

HUL top Sensex gainer: Hindustan Unilever (HUL) and TCS were top Sensex gainers, up nearly 2 per cent, followed by ITC, Asian Paints, HDFC, HCL Tech and Axis Bank, up in the range of 1.5-0.90 per cent. Among other index heavyweights were, Reliance Industries, Maruti Suzuki, State bank of India and Sun Pharma also settled in the positive territory.

Mahindra & Mahindra falls 3.5%: Out of 30 Sensex stocks, 12 scrips ended in the red. The auto major M&M was top index loser, down 3.46 per cent. Bajaj Finance, NTPC and UltraTech Cement were down between 2-2.54 per cent. Besides, telecom major Bharti Airtel too ended one and a half per cent down.

Broader market underperforms: The broader markets underperformed the equity benchmarks. S&P BSE MidCap index lost 0.78 per cent or 115 points to end at 14,702, while the S&P BSE Smallcap finished at 14,573, down 0.20 per cent or 29.49 points.

Nifty FMCG gains over 0.5%: Most of the sectoral indices settled in the negative territory. Nifty FMCG, Nifty IT and Nifty Media were the only indices that ended in the green, up 0.57 per cent, 0.57 per cent and 0.49 per cent, respectively. On the flip side, Nifty Bank finished 0.29 per cent lower and Nifty Auto index declined half a per cent.

Technical observation: “The Nifty threatened crucial support of 11250 this morning but managed to swiftly climb above it to close past 11350. It is imperative the markets are able to keep above this level as a break of 11250-11200 could spawn a short-medium term breakdown which can drag the Nifty by about 300-400 points. On the upside, we would need to cross 11600 on a closing basis for the uptrend to resume again,” said Manish Hathiramani, proprietary index trader and technical analyst, Deen Dayal Investments.