Khaleej Times - Sensex, Nifty drops as Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank drag

Indian stocks slipped on third consecutive day as heavyweights like Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints and Bajaj Auto dragged both S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50.

The Sensex ended 129 points or 0.34 per cent to close at 37,607 and Nifty 50 index declined 29 points or 0.26 per cent to settle at 11,073.

The Sensex moved in a band of 450 points and Nifty touched an intraday high of 11,150.40 and low of 11,026.65. The downside was capped in markets as losses were capped due to buying interest in Sun Pharma, TCS, Infosys SBI and Axis Bank, reported Indian media.

Banking, auto, financial services, media, realty and private banking indexes ended lower. While, FMCG, IT, PSU banking and pharma indexes closed lower.

"Following the weak global market cues Indian markets were trading flat. Nifty50 and BSE Sensex both were up by 0.10 per cent, in early trading. In Nifty50, Reliance Industries was down by 1.50 per cent, HDFC Bank down by 1.40 per cent and Cipla was up by 2.80 per cent. Reliance Industries reports 44 per cent decline in revenue but profits rises to 31 per cent in June quarter. Among the sectoral indices IT was up by 1.70 per cent, pharma was up by 1.30 per cent and financial service were down by 0.75 per cent," said Vijay Valecha, chief investment officer, Century Financial

Reliance Industries was among the top Nifty loser, the stock fell 2 per cent to close at Rs2,070 after its revenue fell 44 per cent in June quarter.

Eicher Motors, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Auto, Wipro, Asian Paints, HDFC, HDFC Life, Hero MotoCorp, BPCL and Zee Entertainment and UltraTech Cement were also among the losers. On the flipside, Sun Pharma was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 5.5 per cent after the company said that its profit came in at Rs 532 crore in June quarter.

State Bank of India climbed 2.4 per cent after its profit surged 81 per cent to Rs 4,189 crore in June quarter. UPL, Mahindra & Mahindra, Axis Bank, HCL Technologies and Tata Motors were also among the gainers.

Meanwhile Indian rupee settled 3 paise higher at 74.81 (provisional) against the US dollar to quote at Dh20.38 on Friday tracking weakness in the greenback.

At the interbank forex market, the rupee opened at 74.74, and witnessed an intra-day high of 74.68 during the session and a low of 74.90 against the US dollar.The currency finally settled for the day at 74.81, 3 paise higher over its previous close of 74.84.

Rahul Gupta, Head of Research- Currency, Emkay Global Financial Services, said: "This week USDINR spot has been trading in a flat range of 74.65-74.90. Traders were expecting cues from the Fed policy but it was a non-event. Now the focus will be shifted to next week's RBI policy. Looking at the slowing growth, we expect RBI may cut repo rate again by 25bps. This may give boost to risk appetite and weigh on USDINR spot. Also, the sell-off in dollar index will continue to keep the spot lower, thus, unless 75 breaks we expect the spot to trade in between 74.50 and 75."

The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, fell 0.22 per cent to 92.81.

"INR appreciated by 0.20 per cent to 74.73 after appreciating 0.095 to 74.8775 in previous session against dollar amid weakness in dollar against major currencies after weak US GDP data and further lockdown easing in India in August also supporting INR," added Valecha

Source :
Khaleej Times
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