Sensex, Nifty close on positive note; market breaks three-day losing streak

In a highly volatile session, value-buying by investors in recently-battered banking, oil and gas, and automobile stocks reversed the three-session losing streak, helping the Sensex and Nifty to close on a positive note on Monday.

The Sensex swung over 660 points both ways on alternate bouts of selling and buying. The 30-share Sensex touched a high of 34,636.43 on the back of sustained buying by domestic institutional investors, but later turned choppy and hit a low of 33,974.66 as selling pressure gathered momentum.

However, amid buying towards the fag-end, it recovered to close the day higher by 97.39 points, or 0.28 per cent, at 34,474.38.

The 30-scrip gauge had lost 2,149.15 points in the previous three straight sessions.

The 50-share NSE Nifty, too, recovered by 31.6 points, or 0.31 per cent, to end at 10,348.05. During the session, it moved between 10,198.4 and 10,398.35.

Besides value-buying, covering-up of short positions by investors also aided the recovery in the market. Top gainers in the Sensex kitty include YES Bank climbing 7.08 per cent, followed by Reliance Industries at 5.53 per cent.

On Monday, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth ~18 billion, taking their month-to-date selling tally to ~122 billion (about $1.6 billion). Domestic investors on the other hand net-bought shares worth nearly ~20 billion. In the past five sessions, mutual funds have invested nearly ~95 billion into stocks.

Hero MotoCorp also surged 5.14 per cent, Kotak Bank 4.62 per cent, State Bank of India 3.18 per cent, Asian Paint 2.99 per cent, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation 1.94 per cent, Bajaj Auto 1.83 per cent, Coal India 1.75 per cent, ICICI Bank 1.35 per cent, Sun Pharma 0.91 per cent, Mahindra & Mahindra 0.76 per cent, Adani Ports 0.73 per cent, NTPC 0.28 per cent and Maruti Suzuki 0.16 per cent.

Vedanta emerged the biggest loser, plunging 10.78 per cent.

Other laggards were Wipro, Axis Bank, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, ITC, Tata Consultancy Services, Larsen & Toubro, Infosys, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, and PowerGrid, losing up to 2.14 per cent.

“After remaining highly volatile for the major part of the session, the market reversed to wipe-off the day's losses completely on bargain-buying in banking, automobile, and oil and gas stocks,” said Manoj Choraria, a Delhi-based NSE stock broker.

Optimistic buying ahead of the earnings season, which begins this week, also buoyed sentiments to some extent, a broker said.

Sector-wise, the BSE oil and gas index topped with a rise of 3.30 per cent, followed by bankex 1.16 per cent, public sector unit (1.13 per cent), auto (0.73 per cent), infrastructure (0.37 per cent), consumer durables (0.37 per cent) and power (0.14 per cent) indices.

While metal, realty, capital goods, information technology and tech indices fell up to 3.18 per cent.

However, broader markets continued to remain under pressure with the small-cap index falling 1.94 per cent and mid-cap index losing 1.9 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, most markets ended lower. The Shanghai Composite Index slumped 3.72 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.39 per cent, Taiwan lost 0.58 per cent Straits Time fell 0.75 per cent. The financial markets in Japan were shut on Monday for a public holiday.

The European markets, too, were trading negative in the early session. Frankfurt’s DAX was down 0.90 per cent and Paris CAC 40, too, lost 0.89 per cent. London’s FTSE, too, shed 0.49 per cent in late Monday morning deals.