SJVN, ITDC, HUDCO, NBCC, MMTC and 513 other stocks freeze at lower circuits

Dhunseri Ventures, WPIL, Jai Corp, Jai Balaji, Waaree Renewable, Apollo Micro, Newgen Software, KPI Green, TRIL and Suzlon Energy were non-CPSEs which were locked in their 5 per cent down circuits

SJVN, India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), Housing & Urban Development Corporation (Hudco), NBCC (India), Hindustan Organic Chemicals (HOCL), and MMTC from the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) pack were locked in their respective lower circuits, with only sellers being seen on these counter amid correction in equity markets.

As many as 518 stocks were locked in their lower circuit of up to 20 per cent on the BSE at 01:21 PM. While the S&P BSE Sensex fell 0.83 per cent at 71,003, the S&P BSE CPSE Index declined 4.6 per cent to 3,380.78 in the intraday trade today. The index has corrected 8.3 per cent from its record high level of 3,685.31 touched on Thursday, February 8.

Dhunseri Ventures, WPIL, Jai Corp, Jai Balaji Industries, Waaree Renewable Technologies, Apollo Micro Systems, Newgen Software Technologies, KPI Green Energy, Transformers and Rectifiers (India) (TRIL), and Suzlon Energy were some of the non-CPSEs which were locked in the 5 per cent down circuit.

Among individual stocks, SJVN was locked in the 20 per cent lower circuit at Rs 112.50 on the back of nearly two-fold jump in trading volumes. Around 128.57 million equity shares have together changed hands and there were pending sell orders for nearly 3 million shares on the NSE and BSE.

With today's fall, the stock of the state-owned power generation stock has corrected 34 per cent from its record high level of Rs 170.45 touched on February 5. Prior to this period, it had zoomed 87 per cent since January.

Shares of ITDC, meanwhile, were locked in the 10 per cent lower circuit at Rs 700.45, having corrected 20 per cent from its all-time high level of Rs 879 touched on February 5. Since January, the stock of the hotels & resorts company has skyrocketed 95 per cent from the level of Rs 451.25.

The S&P BSE CPSE index is designed to measure the performance of CPSEs listed at BSE. CPSEs are companies where 51 per cent or more direct holding belongs to the Central Government of India.

In the recent past, the index outperformed the market by a wide margin. In the past one month, it rallied 19 per cent, while, in three months, it soared 53 per cent. Besides, thus far in the financial year, the index has zoomed 113 per cent.

Since January, the stock price of NBCC India has more-than-doubled, zooming 116 per cent, while, Hudco has zoomed 80 per cent and MMTC by 71 per cent.

"A mixed set of results and a sharp run-up in PSUs over the past months led to profit booking in these counters," said Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

The brokerage firm expects the market to turn cautious and consolidate in the near term amid key macro data to be announced and the last leg of Q3 results.