Sensex and Nifty took a beating on Friday, taking its losing run to the third straight day. The rise in heavyweight IT shares following TCS' positive outlook failed to give benchmark index a lift, thanks to selling pressure in banking shares, Reliance Industries Ltd, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and NTPC Ltd. The market breath was weak, with six stocks falling for every one stock that advanced. A total of 220 stocks hit their lower circuit limits, with fear gauge India VIX topping the 15 level.
Dollar index, which tracks the greenback movement against a basket of six major world currencies, edged 0.08 per cent higher to 109.26. As rupee stayed weak, FPI outflows topped Rs 15,164 crore in January so far.
"In the context of the looming uncertainty regarding President Trump’s likely actions, the market is unlikely to rally in the near-term. There appears to be no respite to the sustained FII selling which touched Rs 7170 crores yesterday. This will continue to put pressure on the market," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services:
The BSE Sensex was trading 161.87 points or 0.21 per cent lower at 77,458.34. Nifty stood at 23,448.55, down 77.95 points or 0.33 per cent. Midcap and smallcap indices fell up to 1.8 per cent.
NTPC Ltd fell 2.54 per cent to Rs 312.15. IndusInd Bank, UltraTech Cement, Power Grid, Axis Bank Ltd, Sun Pharma and State Bank of India declined up to 2 per cent. Maruti Suzuki India, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank and Tata Steel were some of the other Sensex losers.
TCS advanced 4.88 per cent to Rs 4,288. TCS valuations stay attractive compared with peers Infosys Ltd and HCL Technologies Ltd, analysts said as they suggested 'Buy' rating on the stock post Q3 results and hefty dividend announcement.
Adani Wilmar Ltd tumbled 9 per cent in Friday's trade as the two-day offer for sale (OFS) by one of the promoters, Adani Commodities LLP, kicked off. The stock plunged 9.24 per cent to hit a low of Rs 294 on BSE. It declined, as the floor price for the offer was set t Rs 275, which was at a 15.11 per cent discount to Thursday's closing price of Rs 323.95 for Adani Wilmar.
Tata Elxsi Ltd slipped 8 per cent in Friday's trade after a muted set of quarterly results. The transportation vertical showed modest growth in Q3, supported by large deal wins in Asia and Japan. However, the automotive sector in Europe and the US faced significant headwinds, said analysts. Margins were also impacted due to adverse currency movements and salary hikes, analysts said.
"2QFY25 witnessed, amongst other concerns, a slowdown in urban consumption, weaker-than-expected pickup in capex, and stress in unsecured lending books. 3QFY25 is set to be another quarter of modest performance with Nifty50 PAT growth at 5.8 per cent YoY (ex-BFSI, growth is weaker at 2.1 per cent YoY). Given this implies 9MFY25 growth of 4.4 per cent we see downside risks to our FY25E EPS growth expectation of 5.1 per cent. We see risks of EPS cuts to 49 per cent of companies in the JM Financial universe," JM Financial said.
Vijayakumar said since the results season has started the market will witness lots of stock-specific action in response to the results. Results of TCS indicate that the IT sector will continue to remain resilient.
"Results of banking majors will be good but in the context of FII selling, the sector may not perform in response to the results. Pharma and select auto stocks like Eicher, M&M and Bajaj Auto are potential outperformers in a weak market," Vijayakumar said.