Market Wrap, Feb 27: Sensex slips 143 pts, Nifty ends at 11,633

Fears of coronavirus turning into a pandemic owing to rapid spread of the deadly virus outside China unnerved market participants on Thursday, thus causing benchmark indices to end in the red for the fifth consecutive session. Further, expiry of futures & options (F&O) contracts for February series, too, added volatility to the stocks. 

The S&P BSE Sensex lost another 143 points or 0.36 per cent to settle at 39,746, with ONGC (down over 2.5 per cent) being the top loser and Sun Pharma (up over 3.5 per cent) the biggest gainer. Of 30 stocks in the index, 20 ended in the negative territory and rest 10 in the green. NSE's Nifty index ended at 11,633 levels, down 45 points or 0.39 per cent. 

Market breadth were tilted in favour of declines as out of 2,589 companies traded on the BSE, 1,578 declined and 849 advanced while 162 remained unchanged.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap index fell 0.65 per cent to close the session at 15,072 while the S&P BSE SmallCap index lost 120 points or 0.83 per cent to close at 14,209.

Among sectoral indices, barring Pharma and FMCG, all the other indices ended in the red with media and PSU Bank stocks taking the biggest knock. Nifty PSU Bank index dropped over 2 per cent to 2,049 levels. Nifty Pharma index gained over half a per cent to 7,885 levels while Nifty FMCG ended at 29,981, up 0.05 per cent. 

Individual Stocks

Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited (Midhani), NLC India, Bharat Dynamics, MSTC and IRCON International were up between 9 per cent to 29 per cent from their intra-day lows today. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.29 per cent at 39,778 points at 03:15 pm; recovered nearly 1 per cent from its intra-day low of 39,423.

Shares of Cipla were trading lower for the fifth straight day, down 3 per cent at Rs 409 on the BSE on Thursday. The company on Wednesday said it received a warning letter from United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for its Goa manufacturing facility.

Shares of state-owned RITES slipped 6 per cent to Rs 300 on the BSE on Thursday in early morning trade as the government's proposed sale of up to 10 per cent stake in the company at Rs 298 per share through an offer-for-sale (OFS) begins today. The OFS price is at a discount of 6 per cent to Wednesday's close of Rs 318.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Stocks sunk deeper into the red on Thursday, oil prices fell and US Treasuries rallied into record territory as more signs of the global spread of the coronavirus heightened fears of a pandemic. E-mini futures for the S&P 500 were down 1.4 per cent and Europe appears set for a catch-up slump. EuroSTOXX 50 futures fell 2.7 per cent and FTSE futures skidded 2.3 per cent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.5 per cent and is down more than 4 per cent for the week.

In commodities, oil, sensitive to global growth given the vast energy consumption in a many countries, fell more than 1 per cent to its cheapest in over a year.


Read by: Sukanya Roy