ADVERTISEMENT

Sensex Ends Marginally Lower, Nifty Settles Below 7,450

Sensex Ends Marginally Lower, Nifty Settles Below 7,450

The Sensex and Nifty ended Thursday's session marginally lower amid expiry of futures and options contracts for the month of January.

For the most part of the day, the benchmark indices traded on a flat note. The Sensex touched high of 24,587.20 and low of 24,400.52 and the broader Nifty moved in a range of 59 points.

FMCG, power, healthcare and oil & gas stocks witnessed buying interest while selling was visible in banking, capital goods, consumer durables, realty and metal stocks.

From the Nifty-50 basket of stocks, 21 stocks advanced while 29 stocks declined.

Idea Cellular was the top loser in the Nifty, the stock fell 4.47 per cent to close at Rs 104.60. L&T, Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank, Grassim Industries, Bharti Airtel, HDFC, Kotak Bank and Tata Power were also among the losers.

ICICI Bank ended 1.73 per cent lower at Rs 233.20. India's biggest private sector lender by assets, reported a surge in bad loans for the December quarter partly due to a central bank direction to reclassify some troubled loan accounts as bad loans.

Net profit rose 4.5 per cent to Rs 3,018 crore for its fiscal third quarter to December 31, from Rs 2,889 crore reported a year earlier, the bank said in a statement on Thursday.

Analysts on average had expected a net profit of Rs 3,017 crore for the bank.

On the other hand, Vedanta, Cairn India, Power Grid, HUL M&M and ITC were among the gainers.

Among the individual shares, Syndicate Bank shares fell as much as 7 per cent on Thursday after the state-run lender reported a Rs 120 crore-loss in the December quarter. 

Traders attributed the losses to the three-fold increase in provisions made for bad loans. Syndicate Bank's provision for bad loans rose to Rs 857 crore in the December quarter against Rs 290 crore in the year-ago period. 

Just Dial shares fell as much as 8 per cent on Thursday after the internet search firm disappointed investors with its December quarter earnings. Just Dial's net profit dropped 16 per cent to Rs 27 crore, while sales grew 11 per cent to Rs 171 crore in Q3. 

Just Dial CFO Ramkumar Krishnamachari said revenue was impacted by lack of volume growth. "We should have scaled up our business significantly up than the current levels. We are actually couple of quarter behind as far as the expansion is concerned," he conceded.

SpiceJet shares gained as much as 5.65 per cent to hit fresh 52-week high of Rs 95.30 on Wednesday. The rally in SpiceJet shares was aided by buying from foreign institutional investors, traders said.

The Sensex finally ended 23 points lower at 24,469 and Nifty closed 13 points lower at 7,424.65.

3:35 p.m.: The Sensex ended 23 points lower at 24,469 and 50-share Nifty declined 13 points to settle at 7,425 amid expiry of futures and options contract for the month of January.

3:04 p.m.: The Sensex was trading on a lacklustre note ahead of the derivative expiry, down 5 points at 24,486 and Nifty was down 5 points at 7,433.

2:37 p.m.: Syndicate Bank shares fell as much as 7 per cent on Thursday after the state-run lender reported a Rs 120 crore-loss in the December quarter. 

Traders attributed the losses to the three-fold increase in provisions made for bad loans. Syndicate Bank's provision for bad loans rose to Rs 857 crore in the December quarter against Rs 290 crore in the year-ago period. (Read)

2:23 p.m.:
The stock markets moved higher in the late noon deals on the back of buying in FMCG and healthcare stocks. The Sensex advanced 81 points to 24,573 and the 50-share Nifty jumped 26 points to 7,462.

1:52 p.m.: From the stock options space, Maruti Suzuki was the most active contract in the options segment on the National Stock Exchange. Premium on the 4,100 strike price call option fell 71.23 per cent to Rs 12.60. Apart from this, Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Infosys and SKS Microfinance were also among the heavily traded options contracts on the NSE on the expiry day.

1:40 p.m.: Maruti Suzuki, ICICI Bank and Bharti Airtel were trading with a negative bias ahead of third quarter earnings which will be declared later in the day.

1:29 p.m.: The Sensex was up 30 points at 24,522 and the 50-share Nifty advanced 13 points to 7,450.

1:10 p.m.: FMCG stocks were witnessing buying interest. BSE FMCG index was up 1.12 per cent; Venkys, Hindustan Uniliver, ITC, Tata Coffee, GSK Consumer Healthcare and Godrej Consumer Products were among the top gainers.

12:47 p.m.: Just Dial shares fell as much as 8 per cent on Thursday after the internet search firm disappointed investors with its December quarter earnings. Just Dial's net profit dropped 16 per cent to Rs 27 crore, while sales grew 11 per cent to Rs 171 crore in Q3. 

Just Dial CFO Ramkumar Krishnamachari said revenue was impacted by lack of volume growth. "We should have scaled up our business significantly up than the current levels. We are actually couple of quarter behind as far as the expansion is concerned," he conceded. (Read)

12:22 p.m.:
Market breadth was marginally negative as 1,201 stocks were declining while 1,062 stocks were advancing.

12:13 p.m.: Capital goods index was down 1 per cent; Crompton Greaves was the top losers from this space, down 2.14 per cent at Rs 169.05. Larsen & Toubro, BHEL, Thermax, SKF India, Alstom T&D and BEML were also among the losers.

11:54 a.m.: BSE Realty index was down 0.82 per cent; Phoenix Ltd, Unitech, HDIL, Oberoi Realty, Prestige Estates and DLF were among the losers, down 0.63-5.4 per cent each.

11:40 a.m.: Punj Lloyd shares advanced nearly 9 per cent to Rs 26.15 after the company informed the stock exchanges that it won an order worth Rs 2,780 crore for a pipeline contract in Turkey.

11:23 a.m.: The stock markets continued to trade on a subdued note. The Sensex was down 10 points at 24,482 and Nifty was up 2 points at 7,440.

11:02 a.m.: The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc as Trustee of Jupiter India Fund purchased 32,02,386 shares of SpiceJet at Rs 86.43. Post this development, shares of SpiceJet jumped as much as 5.65 per cent to hit fresh 52-week high of Rs 95.30. (Read)

10:46 a.m.: Just Dial shares plunged nearly 8 per cent to hit 52-week low of Rs 722.50 after the company reported weak set of third quarter numbers. Just Dial reported net profit of Rs 26.99 crore compared to Rs 32.14 crore during the same period last year, a decline of 16 per cent. Its net sales came in at Rs 171.33 crore.

10:37 a.m.: Prabhudas Lilladher initiates coverage on SpiceJet with a buy. Prabhudas Lilladher says that SpiceJet shares trade at 8.8 times FY17 estimated earnings per share and offer highest value in the industry. (Click here for more brokerage calls)

10:33 a.m.:
BSE Metal index was down 0.23 per cent; JSW Steel was the top loser in this space, down 1.64 per cent at Rs 1,103.20. NMDC, Jindal Steel, Tata Steel and Hindalco were also among the laggards.

10:04 a.m.: Nifty 7,500 call option was the most active options contract on the National Stock Exchange. The premium on the contract slumped 55.4 per cent to Rs 6. As many as 4.13 lakh share were added to the open interest of over 6 million shares.

9:53 a.m.: Selling was visible in select banking, metal and capital goods stocks. Bank Nifty was down 0.2 per cent; Federal Bank, Yes Bank, Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the losers, down 0.5-1.8 per cent each.

9:45 a.m.: Banking shares offers great value at current juncture, says Parag Thakkar of HDFC Securities.

9:43 a.m.: I think markets are going through a correction, rather than start of bear market, says Mihir Doshi, India CEO, Credit Suisse.

9:25 a.m.: The Sensex and Nifty fell in the opening deals but soon recovered to trade on a flat note. 

As of 9:34 a.m., the Sensex was up 10 points at 24,503 and Nifty was up 2 points at 7,439.

HDFC was the top loser from the Nifty-50 basket of shares, the stock fell as much as 2.73 per cent to Rs 1,138 after the mortgage lender post the market hours on Wednesday reported weaker than expected third quarter numbers. The country's largest mortgage lender said that its net profit came in at Rs 2,419 crore.

ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel and Maruti Suzuki which will declare their third quarter numbers later in the day were also trading with a negative bias.

Analysts expect ICICI Bank to report net profit of Rs 3,091 crore against Rs 2,889 crore during the same quarter last year. The net interest income is expected to come in at Rs 5,280 crore against Rs 4,811 crore last year.

For Maruti Suzuki, analysts expect the company to report net profit of Rs 1,343 crore on sales of Rs 14,848 crore.

And, Bharti Airtel is expected to report net profit of Rs 1,191 crore against Rs 1,522 crore during the same period last year and sales are expected to come in at Rs 24,446 crore.