Sensex, Nifty slip into red: Gland Pharma, Krsnaa Diagnostics & 38 others hit 52-week low

Indian equity benchmarks gave up their gains in afternoon trade on Monday and slipped into the red, as losses in metal and automobile stocks countered gains in technology and state-owned lenders. As of 12:35 pm today, the 30-share BSE index was down 134 points or 0.22 per cent to trade at 60,127, while the broader NSE Nifty fell 62 points or 0.35 per cent to trade at 17,894.

That said, 112 stocks hit their 52-week high level today, while 40 recorded their one-year low levels. The overall market breadth stood negative as 1,759 were seen declining while 1,714 were advancing.

BSE stocks such as Gland Pharma, Krsnaa Diagnostics, Carysil and are among 37 stocks that touched their respective one-year low levels in Monday's trade, while CG Power and Industrial Solutions, Edelweiss Financial Services, IDFC and 109 other scrips hit 52-week highs.

Axis Bank, HDFC twins (HDFC and HDFC Bank), ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel, L&T, M&M and NTPC pulled the BSE index lower today.

269 stocks touched their upper circuit levels today, while 164 hit their respective lower price bands.

Mid- and small-cap shares were last seen trading on a muted note as Nifty Midcap 100 fell 0.08 per cent and small-cap edged 0.02 per cent lower.

On NSE, PNB, Yes Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, UCO Bank, L&T Financial Holdings, IRFC, Lloyds Steels Industries, Tata Steel and Suzlon were the most active stocks, in terms of volume.

In terms of value, HDFC Bank, PNB, Infosys, DMart (Avenue Supermarts), Reliance, Adani Enterprises, TCS, Axis Bank and Bajaj Finance were the most active.

13 out of the 15 Nifty sub-indices declined today. Nifty Metal and Nifty Auto were the worst-performing sub-indices today, falling 1.47 per cent and 0.72 per cent, each.

Foreign institutional investors or FIIs sold Rs 2,422.39 crore worth of equities on a net basis on Friday, while domestic investors purchased Rs 1,953.40 crore worth of shares, as per provisional NSE data.

VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said, "FIIs sold equity for Rs 9,605 crore in the cash market last week, which was absorbed by DII buying of Rs 10,042 crore. So long as the fundamentals of the economy and corporate earnings are good, FII selling is unlikely to impact the market significantly."

Vijayakumar also said that Q3 results of IT majors and HDFC Bank indicate that IT and banking are on strong wicket.

"Some FIIs are shorting India and moving money to other markets like Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand, purely on valuation concerns. This trend is unlikely to last long," he added.

Asian markets were seen trading mixed today. Japan's Nikkei index was last seen trading 1.14 per cent lower, South Korea's Kospi index was up 0.58 per cent, China's Shanghai Composite was down 0.14 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng up 1.01 per cent.

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