Monday Market Update: IT & Pharma holds the indices

Markets at a Glance:

Indian benchmark indices ended almost flat today with marginal gains. Nifty50 was able to cross 12000 levels during intraday but later closed at 11930. At the same time, Sensex grew by 84 points and closed at 40593. Only IT & Pharma and FMCG sectoral indices managed to hold the market, all remaining sectoral indices ended in red with Media and PSU bank getting hit the most.

Nifty IT grew by 1.67%, while Nifty Pharma grew by almost 1% and FMCG by 0.34%. India VIX, which measure the fear in the overall market, also grew by 3.66% and settled at 21.13.

Top Gainers/Losers:

Infosys, ITC, UPL, pharma major CIPLA and Asian Paints were able to make most gains today. On the other hand, Bharti Airtel, JSW Steel, GAIL, HDFC Life and Tata Motors were among the top losers in today’s session.

DII/FII data of today’s market:

DIIs divested Rs.1028.77 crore, on the other hand, FII invested Rs.615.17 crore during today’s market session.

CPI based Inflation rises to 7.34% in September:

As per the data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation increased to 7.34% for September month, higher from 6.69% of August month. This rise in inflation is on a YoY basis.

Inflation is well above RBI’s upper cap of 6%, thus making it difficult for the central bank to cut down the repo rate further. In last week’s MPC too, RBI kept key interest rates unchanged.

IIP declines by 8% in August:

Index of Industrial production declined by 8 per cent in August, mainly due to lower output of manufacturing, mining and power generation sectors, as per the data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation.

On YoY basis for August month, manufacturing sector had a decline of 8.6%, mining had decline of 9.8% and electricity segment witnessed a pitfall of 1.8%.

Mazgaon Dock sails at 48% premium, while UTI AMC lists at 10% discount in market:

Shares of Mazgaon dock made a strong debut by listing on NSE at Rs.214.9, 45% premium to its IPO price of Rs.145. But later in the day, the stock price fell by around 20% and settled around Rs.172.

On the other hand, UTI AMC stock had a weak start. It opened at Rs.500 on NSE which was around 9.7% lower than its IPO price of Rs.554 and later closed around Rs.481.5 at end of the day.

FM announces measures to increase the consumer demand in economy:

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced today a set of steps to boost the consumer demand in the economy. For central employees including that of PSBs and PSUs will get an interest-free advance of Rs.10000, which will be recovered in 10 instalments later. The advance will be given in the form of pre-loaded Rupay card, and it needs to be spent before March 31, 2021. FM also announced the Leave Travel Concession (LTC) cash voucher scheme for central employees to increase their spending power.

Another major announcement is for states which are granted with combined Rs.12000 crore interest-free loans for a period of 50 years for capital expenditure. Out of this Rs.12000 crore, Rs.1600 crore is reserved for North-East states and another Rs.900 crore reserved for Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

Read our Friday’s market update here.

Read our today’s market predictions here