 "Bombay Stock Exchange")
Indian shares ended Samvat 2072, Hindu calendar year, on a positive note. Not only did the 30-share index S&P BSE Sensex and NSE’s Nifty 50 close in positive territory on Friday, gaining 26 points and 23 points respectively, but they also ended Samvat 2072 with gains of eight per cent and 10.4 per cent.
On Friday, Sensex closed at 27,942 whereas the broader Nifty 50 closed at 8,638, up a quarter of a percentage point. However, there was more action in the broader market as Mid-cap and Small-cap indices ended nearly one per cent higher. Foreign funds sold shares worth a net Rs 469.93 crore, as per provisional data released by exchanges.
The total market capitalisation of BSE was Rs 1,13,58,257 crore.
A rebound in shares of Tata group companies, particularly Tata Motors, amid recovery in some of the banking and pharma shares aided the market sentiments despite the trading session being a choppy one during the intra-day period.
According to Sachidanand Uttekar, equity technical analyst at Motilal Oswal Securities, “The occurrence of a ‘Bullish Hammer’ at the retracement support raises the expectation of a move beyond the channel pattern. A breach above 8,730 from here on could amplify the momentum. Hence, longs could be initiated with a stop below 8,540.”
In Samvat 2072, foreign investors were net buyers of Indian shares to the tune of $5.8 billion (Rs 38,600 crore), while domestic institutions bought shares worth Rs 33,423 crore, data show. The strong buying by institutional and retail investors played a key role in keeping the sentiments high.
For the year, among the top gainers in Sensex include Tata Steel, GAIL, Power Grid, Asian Paints and Tata Motors. These stocks ended the year with gains ranging between 30 per cent and 83 per cent. The losers were largely from the pharma, information technology (IT) and telecom sectors (Lupin, Wipro, Cipla, Infosys, Bharti Airtel). Companies in these sectors have been under pressure on account of US FDA issues, pressure in global IT spends and increasing domestic competition in telecom, respectively.
Shares of two IT majors, Infosys and Wipro, hit their respective 52-week lows in intra-day trade on Friday. Infosys closed the Samvat 2072 at Rs 997.45, after hitting a low of Rs 994, while Wipro traded last at Rs 461.70 after going as low as to Rs 454.10 during the day.
Interestingly, on the last day for Samvat 2072, shares of mid-and-small sized companies reported strong gains.
The S&P BSE Mid-cap and Smallcap indices ended the year with 24 per cent and 20 per cent gains, respectively. Top Mid-cap gainers were Biocon (up 110 per cent), Petronet LNG (90 per cent), JSW Steel (88.6 per cent), HPCL (88.2 per cent) and Indian Bank (81.5 per cent). Top losers in the BSE Mid-cap index were Wockhart, Reliance Communications, Blue Dart Express, GE T&D and Rajesh Exports.
Going forward, market experts are hopeful for a better recovery in markets and economy. They say the markets are currently in a transition phase and from a year’s perspective it looks positive. Prashant Jain, chief investment officer (CIO), HDFC Mutual Fund, says, “There is good value in sectors that have seen serious stress in profitability in last few years. This will be more evident in P/E terms as well as the profitability in these sectors gets restored driving down multiples. I think we are firmly on that path and the next two years should be sufficient for this to be evident.”
The upcoming US Fed event and presidential elections in the US pose some volatility risks to Indian stocks in the near term. According to Mahesh Patil, co-CIO at Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, there could be short term volatility in the near term. “However, long-term outlooks looks quite decent from here on,” he says.
The market will remain closed on Monday on account of ‘Diwali Balipratipada’.
