Market Highlights: Sensex tanks 485 pts, ends at 52,568, Nifty closes at 15,727; ICICI Bank, Tata Steel among drags

“June month saw flattish net sales in Fixed income -- being the month-end and quarter-end too. FMP a category continued to net sales –ve as investors seem to adopt a wait and watch approach before locking in funds. Gold ETFs continued to add net +ve AUMs month on month and witnessed a steady rise in folios too. Hybrid funds saw the highest net sales in June at over INR 12,000 cr compared to April and May for Q1 of FY 22," said Lakshmi Iyer, CIO (Debt) & Head Products, Kotak Mahindra AMC.

Sensex and Nifty closed in deep in the red on Thursday as bears forced domestic markets lower. India VIX gained 11%. Bank Nifty ended 1.39% lower.

India VIX was up 10.9% ahead of the closing bell on Thursday. The index was scaling down from highs. 

Smallcap indices on NSE turned positive ahead of the closing bell as D-Street trimmed losses. Nifty smallcap 50, Nifty Smallcap 100, and Nifty Smallcap 250 were up in the green.

Sensex was still in red but was seen recouping some losses ahead of the closing bell. Nifty neared 15,750.

Nifty metal index was down 2.28% as the worst-performing NSE sectoral index on Thursday, it was followed by Nifty PSU bank, and Nifty Bank index. 

The market witnessed a correction after a failed attempt to hold the support level around the Nifty 50 Index level of 15800. Market suggests, 15650 will be an important support level from a short-term perspective. Sustaining above 15650-15670 levels, the market expects to bounce back, and trade in the range of 15650-15900. Technical indicator suggests, a volatile movement in the market in the range of 15650-15900. Ashis Biswas, Head of Technical Research at CapitalVia Global Research

Nifty Next 50 was down only 0.29% while the Nifty 50 index tanked more than 1% on Thursday. Adani Transmission and IGL were the top gainers. 

Bank Nifty was down 1.5% at 35,231 points ahead of the closing bell. RBL Bank was down 3.4% while SBI and ICICI bank slipped more than 2% each.

Tata Steel, Sun Pharma, ICICI Bank, and Dr Reddy's were among the worst performers on Sensex with minutes left ahead of the closing bell. 

India VIX moved higher again, jumping 13% as Nifty 50 continued to trade with heavy losses. 

"Investors continue to invest in pure equity schemes resulting in positive net sales of almost 6000 cr, this is slightly lower than last month due to higher redemptions. For now, the trend surely is in favour of Indian Equities by domestic investors. It is particularly very encouraging to witness good amount of interest in dynamic / asset allocations funds with higher gross sales of 4300 cr and net sales of 2300 cr. The prime objective of the funds in this category is to use valuation models and then dynamically rebalance portfolio between equities and fixed income ensuring better risk-adjusted returns for investors. In current environment, dynamic / asset allocations funds are good option for investors certainly," said Akhil Chaturvedi, Associate Director, Head of Sales & Distribution, Motilal Oswal Asset Management Company. 

Tech Mahindra was the top Sensex gainer, up 0.76%, followed by Bajaj Auto, Titan, NTPC, and HCL Technologies.

Nifty regained 15,700 ahead of the closing bell. Tech Mahindra, Eicher Motors, Shree Cements, Titan Company, NTPC, and Power grid were the gainers on Nifty 50.

We continue to remain constructive on Tata Communications and Bharti Airtel (from a medium term perspective). Our positive stance on Bharti is underscored by market share gains across segments, healthy subscriber additions and potential FCF generation along with tariff hike. In the case of TCOM, the upward revision in financial targets after meeting 2 of the 3 goals highlighted last year, along with balance sheet deleveraging, cost optimization measures and impending revenue recovery, supports our view. Emkay Global Financial Services

India VIX, the volatility gauge, was seen trimming its advances ahead of the closing bell. India VIX was up 11.9%.

Nifty IT index turned positive with less than an hour to go before the closing bell. The Index gained 0.02%, helped by Tech Mahindra, Coforge, and L&T Infotech shares.

Nifty PSU Bank index fell more than 2% on Thursday afternoon. Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Canara Bank, and Central Bank were among the top drags.

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"Massive Call Writing (Addition of OI) of over 7.5 million shares in NIFTY happened today at 15800. So, going above 15800 looks out of the question now even if there is a mild pullback. On the lower side, 15700 holds maximum PUT OI -- however, fresh PUT writing is not happening much meaning the overall structure is weak. NIFTY's behaviour against 15700 important -- if it recovers it will NOT move past 15800 in all likelihood," said Milan Vaishnav, CMT, MSTA, Consulting Technical Analyst and founder, Gemstone Equity Research & Advisory Services.

The volatility index was moving higher on Thursday, up 13.7% at 13.89 levels. The index had closed at 12.21 yesterday.

Nifty slipped below 15,700 again, giving up crucial support levels for the day. TATA Motors, JSW Steel were among the top drags on the 50-stock index. 

Midcap and Smallcap indices on NSE and BSE were performing better than largecap peer on Thursday. BSE Midcap index was down 0.59% while the Nifty midcap 50 was down 1%. On the other hand, BSE Smallcap index was down 0.5% and the Nifty Smallcap 50 slipped 0.54%. Both Sensex and Nifty, meanwhile, were down more than 1.1% each.

Bank Nifty moved below 35,200, down 568 points. ICICI Bank, SBI, and RBL Bank were among the worst-performing bank stocks. 

Nifty IT index was in the red on Thursday, mirroring the broader market trend. Mindtree, TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Techmologies were in the red.

Bank Nifty continued to move lower on Thursday, falling 1.54% or 547 points. The index was trading at 35,224. AU Small Finance Bank was the only gainer among Bank Nifty constitutens. 

Nifty 50 slipped below 15,700 to hit an intra-day low of 15,698 but recovered immediately. The index is down more than 1% on Thursday.

Nifty Metal index dived 2% on Thursday with little over an hour left to go before the day's closing bell. SAIL, Jindal Steel, and National Aluminimum were among the top drags, falling more than 3% each. 

Open-ended debt schemes saw inflows of Rs 3,566 crore in June against outflows of Rs 44,512 crore. Inflows into equity-oriented schemes were down to Rs 5,988 crore against Rs 10,000 in the previous month. 

In the month of June, mutual funds saw investors pump in a net Rs 15,320 crore against May's outflows of 38,601 crore.

With bears pulling benchmark indices lower on Thursday, broader markets gave up gains and slipped into the red. 

Bank Nifty fell 1.37% on Thursday as bank stocks fell. The index was trading at 35,281.

India VIX, the fear gauge of domestic markets, was up 13% with little over an hour left before the day's closing bell. 

Sensex and Nifty tanked 1% each on Thursday as bears took control on Dalal Street. Index heavyweights such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and RIL were down in the red. 

Investing is a long term journey and within that there are several pit-stops where one may pause and have a close look at the portfolio. There could have been new developments in the recent past which may shape up the future in a new light altogether. Currently, the stock markets are at an all-time highs and the valuation of some stocks makes them expensive as well. The potential for the equity markets to go higher still exists but investors need to exercise a bit more caution. So, at the 2021 mid-point, many investors are looking for answers to keep their portfolio returns on the same track in light of the recent developments, especially on the front of inflation, yields and dollar strength.

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"S&P BSE REALTY hits a high of 2890 and now is trading near the 52 week high of 2909.9 which was made in March 2021. We have seen some good numbers from Sobha Limited yesterday which were better than the market expectation. The company reported pre-sales growth of 40%. We have seen a very good 2nd half of FY21 after the sector was adversely hit by the pandemic in 2020. Several companies reported their all-time high results in Q4FY21 on the back of some effects of pent-up demand. It was expected that the demand for 2022 will strengthen this year whereas the ready to move inventory levels have hit 7 years low in Q1FY22, as customer preference has been changed to the ready property rather than the under-construction properties. We expect Residential real-estate to do well in the financial year 2022 as some early signs of the organized sector gaining the market share are encouraging. We have a buy call on Godrej property with a target price of 1700," said Yash Gupta Equity Research Associate, Angel Broking.

Bajaj Auto, Tech Mahindra, NTPC, IndusInd Bank, HDFC, UltraTech Cement and Titan were the only gainers on Sensex was the index fell nearly 400 points. 

All sectoral indices on NSE were down in the red on Thursday. The Nifty Metal index was the worst performer, down 1.59%, followed by Nifty Pharma index and Nifty Bank index.

Activities in Nifty futures remained muted last week as well. However, FIIs have created fresh shorts in the index while their net longs have declined from 90000 contracts to just 56000 contracts since June settlement. Hence, it feels like some short bias from FIIs is building up. India VIX continued to move lower and declined sharply in the last few sessions. From the reading of above 15 seen during the June settlement, it has declined near 12 in just over a week, indicating significant option writing at ATM strikes. A small trigger can infuse sharp volatility where a directional move of 3-4% cannot be ruled out.

~ ICICI Direct