Profit booking sees market cooling off after hitting record highs

Sensex drops 865 pts from day's high; Private banks gain

The domestic markets took a breather after logging fresh highs amid profit taking in index bluechip names like Reliance Industries, Tata Consultancy Services and Tata Steel. The benchmark Sensex came off as much as 865 points from the day’s high amid global investors remaining cautious ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s meeting next week. The Sensex settled at 59,016, down 125 points, or 0.21 per cent. It touched an intra-day high of 59,737. The Nifty 50 index after climbing to 17,793 ended at 17,585, down 44 points, or 0.25 per cent. Both indices logged their fourth straight weekly advance.

Global markets traded mixed as the US Treasury yield rose after strong US retail sales reading. The unexpectedly positive retail sales number indicated the US economic recovery was resilient despite concerns due to rise in cases of the Delta Covid-19 variant.

The 10-year US Treasury traded around 1.336 per cent, while the US futures market pointed to weak opening on Wall Street.

Experts said investors were keenly eying next week’s Fed meeting amid a series of strong economic data, which could tempt the central bank to advance its taper programme.

“Global markets traded cautiously ahead of the Fed Reserve and Bank of England policy meetings next week,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

“The numbers from US, and Europe, the outcome of the central bank policy meetings due next week, and also the domestic developments around the positive impact of the government policies which were recently announced, and most of all the higher energy prices, are all factors that may be of some import for the markets next week,” added Joseph Thomas, Head of Research, Emkay Wealth Management.

A day earlier, the Sensex and Nifty had defied weak global cues to hit fresh record highs amid strong gains in banking and telecom stocks following policies support measures announced by the government. Many banking stocks extended gains with the Nifty Bank index hitting a fresh record of 37,812, up 0.4 per cent. In the previous session, the index had surpassed the lifetime high made in February.

Overall market breadth was weak as only 15 out of the 50 Nifty components ended with gains. Kotak Mahindra Bank gained the most at 5.63 per cent, followed by HDFC Bank at 1.64 per cent and Bharti Airtel at 1.52 per cent. Tata Steel fell the most at 3.76 per cent, followed by Coal India (-3.45 per cent) and State Bank of India (-2.25 per cent).

On the BSE, 1,231 stocks advanced and 2,065 declined. The small and midcap indices underperformed the benchmark indices.

The Indian market has had a stellar run this year, outperforming most global markets. The Nifty is up 25.4 per cent year-to-date, even as the MSCI World index has gained just 15 per cent. Since August, India’s outperformance vis-à-vis the world markets has been stark due to an increase in pace of vaccination, hopes of economic revival and gains in key large-cap stocks.

Buying support from both domestic as well as overseas investors has further fueled the rally.