Benchmark indices closed in the green on Friday led by financials and FMCG.
Market, after opening on a positive note amid weak global cues, turned volatile during the first half with benchmarks dipping in the red. However, they managed to retain gains during the second half amid recovery in heavyweights such as ICICI Bank. Even as the domestic market recovers, the concerns of rise in cases of the Delta variant across the globe continue to worry investors, said analysts.
The BSE Sensex closed at 52,975.80, up 138.59 points or 0.26 per cent. It breached the 53,000-mark during the day with an intraday high of 53,114.70. It hit an intraday low of 52,653.77. The Nifty 50 closed at 15,856.05, up 32.00 points or 0.20 per cent. It hit an intraday high of 15,899.80 and a low of 15,768.40
Decliners outnumber
The breadth of the market, however, turned in favour of the decliners with 1,667 stocks declining, 1,579 advancing and 123 remaining unchanged on the BSE. As many as 468 securities hit the upper circuit and 233 the lower circuit; 474 hit their 52-week high while 24 touched a 52-week low.
Shibani Kurian, Senior EVP & Head- Equity Research, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company, said, “Domestic equity markets largely moved in a range and consolidated during the week ended 23rd July 2021."
Globally, the trend of rise in Covid cases on account of the delta variant, especially in the UK and Asia and inflation concerns are some of the key risks that the market is grappling with," Kurian added.
In India, the cases have been relatively low with certain frequency economic indicators being close to pre-pandemic levels.
FPIs remain sellers
"While FIIs flows turned net negative in July, domestic institutional investors remained net buyers. SIP flows to mutual funds are also holding up well resulting in fairly balance institutional flows," Kurian said.
According to VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, "FPIs have been on the sell-mode in July with a net sale of ₹5,689 crore for the month. They have been continuous sellers in the cash market for the last 6 trading days. Heavy FII selling is seen in the Nifty 15750-15900 range.”
Factors such as the progress of monsoon, global liquidity and global interest rates and improvement in global GDP, the trend of inflation in many global commodities like crude oil and steel and the pace of corporate earnings growth in India will further decide the movement of the market.
ICICI Bank, Wipro, ITC, SBI Life and Tata Consumer were the top gainers on the Nifty 50 while Tata Motors, Grasim, Adani Ports, L&T and UPL were the top laggards.
Auto under pressure
On the sectoral front, auto stocks faced increased pressure during the second half as financials, FMCG and Realty gained. Nifty Auto was down 0.34 per cent.
Meanwhile, Nifty Bank and Nifty Financial Services were up 1.03 per cent and 0.68 per cent, respectively while Nifty Private Bank was up 0.89 per cent. Nifty PSU Bank was up 0.74 per cent.
Nifty Realty was up 1.29 per cent. Nifty FMCG was up 0.81 per cent.
Broader indices underperform
Broader indices were in the red as midcap and smallcap stocks underperformed as compared to the benchmarks.
Nifty Midcap 50 was down 0.18 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 50 was down 0.85 per cent. The S&P BSE Midcap was down 0.07 per cent while the S&P BSE Smallcap was up 0.11 per cent.
The volatility index fell 1.03 per cent to 11.76.