Bloodbath on D-Street continues as Sensex down by 1,200 pts, Nifty near 17,500

BSE Sensex fell by 874.16 points, or 1.45 per cent, at 59,330.90, while Nifty 50 was at 17,604.35, down 287.60 points, or 1.61 per cent. 

In terms of sectoral indices, on BSE, Power and Oil and Gas indexes tumbled by 7.17 per cent and 6.08 per cent respectively, while BSE FMCG, auto and healthcare index ended in green.

Meanwhile, the Nifty Bank index shed over 3.12 per cent to 40,361.70.

Adani Ports, Adani Enterprises, ICICI Bank, SBI and BPCL were among the top Nifty losers, while Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, ITC and Divis Laboratories were the biggest gainers.

From the Sensex pack, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Bank were among the major laggards.

Tata Motors, ITC, Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Steel were among the winners. Tata Motors jumped up by 6.32 per cent to ₹445.60 on BSE.

“The Nifty started the week on a positive note however witnessed steep selling pressure in the second half of the week. As a result, it broke down from the consolidation range, which it was witnessing for the last one month. It broke the support zone of 17800-17760, which will now act as a resistance as per the principle of role reversal. On the downside, the Nifty has halted near the 61.8% retracement of the Sept – Dec 2022 rise & 200 DEMA, which are near 17550. Today’s low of 17493 will be a key support. If that is breached then the decline can continue till 17300,” said Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Head of Technical Research, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas.

Adani group’s all seven stocks fell today for the second straight day after the release of the Hindenburg Research report that alleged a ‘fraud’. Seven of Adani companies lost ₹2.83 lakh crore market-cap as of 13:00 IST.

“Indian benchmark equity gauges Sensex and Nifty hit their over three month lows on Friday, dragged by massive selling mainly in Adani group and banking stocks. It was a mayhem on Dalal Street for the second day running, with today’s fall being sharper than the one seen on Thursday. Adani shares were in the line of the fire following the Hindenburg report accusing the group of serious irregularities. Eight listed companies of the Adani conglomerate – controlled by Gautam Adani lost more than 3 Lakh Cr market capitalization on Friday. Dalal Street returned to trade after the Republic Day market holiday amid largely positive moves across other global markets, after data showing slowing GDP growth in the US took away some of the concerns about a recession and rekindled hopes of less aggressive hikes in interest rates,” said Devarsh Vakil, Deputy Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

“At close, Nifty was down by 288 points or 1.61% at 17604. Volumes on the NSE were sharply higher as compared to recent averages. Broad market indices ended the week where Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Small-cap 100 Index fell by 1.5% and 1.9% respectively. Declining shares outnumbered the advancing shares where advance decline ratio stood at 0.3:1 on BSE. Among Sectoral Indices, PSU Banks and Metal indices gained the most while Auto and Pharma rose the most. Nifty breached its 200 DEMA support of 17750 in the intraday session. Nifty has closed below the crucial support of 17761, which happened to be the multiple bottom support in the last 6 weeks. Now from here, previous support of 17761 is expected to interchange its role as a short-term resistance. Above 17761, resistance for Nifty is seen at 18000. Below 17493, Nifty could extend its fall towards the next support of 17350,” he added.

The Indian rupee closed marginally higher at 81.52 per dollar against pervious close of 81.59.

The FIIs have been on a selling spree this month, taking the total outflow in equities to ₹16,766 crore in January.  On Friday, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) net sell was ₹5,977.86 crore while DIIs net buy stood at ₹4,252.33 crore, according to exchange data.

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