Thursday Market Ends On A Mixed Note

The benchmark indices BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty soared high on Thursday as they gained 282.48 points or 0.78 per cent and 74.90 points or 0.68 per cent, respectively, during the day before settling at 36,548.41 and 11,023.20, at the end of day’s trading session.

“While the broader market gained, the MidCaps and SmallCaps witnessed profit booking in the second half to end negative by 0.4 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively. We believe the markets will see some consolidation at the current levels and face strong resistance at higher levels near to its previous all-time high of 11,171 level,” said Rajeev Srivastava, Head-Retail Broking, Reliance Securities.

Reliance Industries led among the top gainers with 4.42 per cent in the BSE Sensex, followed by Wipro (2.44 per cent), L&T (1.94 per cent), HDFC (1.74 per cent) and SBI (1.49 per cent), while Vedanta, Infosys, Bajaj Auto, M&M and Hero MotoCorp were the big losers with 1.00 per cent, 0.96 per cent, 0.96 per cent, 0.83 per cent, 0.56 per cent, respectively.

Reliance Industries, BPCL and Wipro were the top three gainers at the NSE Nifty, whereas UPL, Vedanta and Bajaj Auto were a let-down at the end of day’s market.

The market saw the value of the Indian rupee rise by 0.22 paise or 0.32 per cent to the US dollar to stand at Rs 68.55, at the time of closing.

“Markets have crossed the all-time highs on the back of global cues as well as a solid start to the earnings season with TCS beating expectations. The divergence between large caps and mid caps has widened in 2018 with the MidCap and SmallCap indices still down by 15-20 per cent from the top. Even within the Nifty, selected high quality stocks with earnings visibility are driving the index with TCS, HDFC Bank, HUL, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Reliance (Industries) being the key outperformers in CY18,” said Gautam Duggad, Head of Research, Motilal Oswal Institutional Equities. “We expect the markets to remain in a tight range albeit with higher volatility in 2018 given the busy political calendar ahead,” he added

The S&P BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices lost 80.81 points or 0.52 per cent and 9.28 points or 0.06 per cent, respectively. The MidCap Index stood at 15,551.74 and the SmallCap Index closed at 16,420.09, at the end of the trading session.

The Asian markets ended on a high as China’s Shanghai Composite gained the highest rising by 2.16 per cent, followed by Nikkei (Japan), FTSE 100 (UK), CAC 40 (France), Hang Seng (Hong Kong) and DAX (Germany) with 1.17 per cent, 0.76 per cent, 0.63 per cent, 0.60 per cent, 0.56 per cent, respectively.

In the commodities sector, Brent Crude lost Rs 51 or 1.04 per cent and closed at Rs. 4,849 per bbl, while gold prices fell by Rs 135 or 0.45 per cent and stood at Rs 30,175.00, at the time of filing this report.

Banks, on the other hand, fared well at the BSE as HDFC Bank steered forward with a gain of 18.65 points (0.87 per cent), followed by the State Bank of India and Axis Bank with a gain of 3.85 points (1.49 per cent) and 0.65 (0.12 per cent), respectively.