Markets extend losses, frontline shares weigh

Markets were choppy for the most part of the day as investors stayed to the sidelines due to lack of cues, but heavy selling in noon trades in ICICI Bank, ITC, Bharti Airtel and HDFC Bank dragged the benchmark Sensex down by over 100 points.

The S&P CNX Nifty opened in the red and moved between gains and losses before giving into heavy selling by banking and FMCG heavyweights which took the index to low of 5450. The Nifty was down 61 points, at 5,477 and the Sensex was down 189 points, at 18,277 at 14:50 hrs.

FIIs have been net sellers in cash for the past 8 sessions and have sold shares worth Rs 5597.8 crore and they have also been trading below the 200 Daily Moving Average for the past three sessions indicating that markets are in a bear grip.

 

Ashish Chaturmohta, VP (Derivatives & Technical Analyst) from IIFL Wealth said, “Heavy call writing was seen at 5600 and 5700 levels. Also people who expected a pullback rally after 8 consecutive sessions of losses were not able to exit positions and stop losses got triggered causing further weakness in the markets.”

Ashish added, Nifty has broken 5500 support and a close below this level will lead to further selling pressure towards 5300, and on the upside, buying may be seen only if it sustains above 5700 levels on closing basis.

BSE Realty and Power shares were leading the losses; the indices were down around 2% each.

HDIL was the top loser, down 7.1%, Anant Raj Industries declined 4.4% and DB Realty was off 3.4%.

From the power space prominent losers were Tata Power, off 4.2%, Reliance Infra slipped 4% and Reliance Power declined 2.7%.

Also midcap and smallcap indices were down 0.7% each. Market breadth was negative 1772 stocks declined for 946 stocks which advanced.