Mumbai: The benchmark Sensex slipped from its five week winning streak, dropping 371.00 points to close at 33,314.56, while the broader fell well-below the psychological 10,400 to finish at 10,321.75.
The volatile trading week saw sustained selling couple of trading sessions, while buying in fundamentally strong stocks somewhat helped to cap larger losses.
The market resumed the week on looming uncertainty on crudeoil price crux following shake-up in Saudi kingdom, but the domestic liquidity flow kept the market afloat, marking new highs before succumbing to uncertainty.
The sudden flare-up in Saudi Arabia where the crown prince cemented his power with anti-graft crackdown triggered volatility in crude rising 3.5 per cent impacting domestic sentiment due to driving worries on inflation and fiscal deficit.
Negatives from USFDA in key Pharma companies pressured sentiment, however, good set of earnings in key corporates spelt gains and two-day GST council meet led the market resorting to consolidation mode.
The outcome of GST Council meet slashing rates in certain sectors consumer durables, auto ancillaries and infra and buying in key frontline shares cushioned the losses.
Opening the week at 33,710.15 points, the index marked an all time high of 33,865.95 and low of
33,108.09, before closing the week at 33,314.56, showing a loss of 371.00 points or 1.10 per cent.
The Sensex garnered 2,596.23 points or 8.30 per cent during the previous five week session.
The Nifty started the week at 10,431.75 and touched new peak at 10,490.45 and low of 10,254.10. It ended at 10,321.75, down 130.75 points, or by 1.25 per cent.
Profit-booking was led by HealthCare, Oil&Gas, Realty, Power, Metal, PSU, Auto and Banking counters, followed by secondline shares of midcap and smallcap companies shares.
While buying was seen in Consumer Durables, Capital Goods, IT, Teck and IPOs.
Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth Rs 6,207.93 crore during the week, as per Sebi’s record including the provisional figure of November 10.
The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index declined 150.42 points or 0.9 per cent to settle at 16,562.69. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index declined 212.21 points or 1.19 per cent to settle at 17,643.82.
Among sectoral and industry indices, Healthcare declined by 4.62 per cent followed by oil&gas 3.30 per cent, realty 2.86 per cent, power 2.39 per cent, metal 2.08 per cent, auto 1.33 per cent and bankex 0.59 per cent, while consumer durables rose to 10.33 per cent, IT 3.37 per cent, teck 1.73 per cent, capital goods 0.72 per cent, FMCG 0.46 per cent and IPO 0.09 per cent.
Among the 31-share Sensex pack, 20 stocks fell and remaining 11 stocks rose during the week.
Lupin slumped 20.53 per cent after the company announced that a combined warning letter was issued by the US drug regulator for the company’s Goa and Indore, Pithampur Unit II, sites.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel dropped by 7.31 per cent. Bharti Airtel had November 7 2017 announced rollover’ facility for its home broadband customers. With this, all unused monthly data will be carried forward and added to the data benefit of the next billing cycle, further enhancing the value proposition for customers. Customers can accumulate up to 1,000 GB data and easily track their usage and balance data available on MyAirtel App.
It was followed by Reliance 6.57 per cent, Tata Motors 5.43 per cent, Cipla 4.78 per cent, Sun Pharma 4.51 per cent, HDFC 3.81 per cent, Dr reddy 2.95 per cent, NTPC 2.54 per cent and Kotak bank 2.40 per cent.
Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) was the top Sensex gainer. The stock jumped by 4.68 per cent. It was followed by HUL 4.25 per cent, Infosys 3.66 per cent, TCS 3.47 per cent, Wipro 2.63 per cent and SBI 2.52 per cent.
The total turnover during the week on BSE rose to Rs 37,433.79 crore as against last weekend’s level of Rs 34,759.16 crore and NSE climbed to 1,80,596.80 crore compared to Rs 1,74,077.87 crore previously.
Gold gains more than 1 per cent
Gold snapped its three weeks of sluggishness by gaining over one per cent for the week following resurgence in buying by investors and stockists, coupled with jewellery demand with turnaround in global market lifting the sentiment.
Persistent local buying interest due to wedding season supported the yellow-metal.
Bullion traders said, apart from a firm trend overseas as the fresh weakness in the dollar raised demand for the precious metals as a safe haven, increased buying by jewellers at the domestic market, mainly attributed the rise in the precious metals’ prices.
Elsewhere, silver maintained its second weekly gain due to speculative buying coupled with higher industrial demand.
Overseas, for the week, however, gold futures rose 0.4 per cent as the US dollar declined late in the week after the Senate’s tax-cut proposal underwhelmed, providing a lift to commodities priced in the currency.
December gold slipped USD 13.30, or 1 per cent, to finish at USD 1,274.20 an ounce, a day after posting its highest finish since Oct 16. The metal booked its first weekly gain of the past four weeks.
In other metals, silver for December fell 10.4 cents, or 0.6 per cent, to settle at USD 16.871 an ounce, also getting knocked lower after trading in positive territory earlier. The white metal posted a weekly rise of 0.2 per cent.
In the New York Comex trade, gold for December delivery rose to USD 1,274.20 an ounce compared to last Friday’s December close of USD 1,269.20 and silver for December also climbed to end at USD 16.871 an ounce from USD 16.834.
On the domestic front, standard gold (99.5 purity) resumed lower at Rs 29,085 per 10 grams from last Friday’s closing level of Rs 29,140, it declined to Rs 29,115 before recouping to settle at Rs 29,520, revealing a rise of Rs 380, or 1.30 per cent.
Pure gold (99.9 purity) also commenced lower at Rs
29,235 per 10 grams compared to preceding weekend level of Rs 29,290, it soon drifted to Rs 29,265 before recovering to close at Rs 29,670, showing a gain of Rs 380, or 1.29 per cent.
Silver ready (.999 fineness) opened negative at Rs 8,965 per kilogram from last Friday’s closing level of Rs 39,385, later it fell to Rs 38,995 before bouncing back to finish at Rs 39,545, registering a gain of Rs 160 per kilo, or 0.40 per cent.
Rupee closes at one-month low
The rupee retreated sharply after a brief pullback against the US currency during the highly volatile week and ended at a fresh one-month low of 65.16 due to heavy dollar demand and also stunned by risk of another oil shock.
Overall forex sentiment suffered a near-term crisis with recovery turning out to be short-lived as nervousness took centre stage stemming from a sharp spike in crude prices.
This is the lowest closing for the home currency since October 10.
The latest developments sparked a rally for the international oil benchmark to trade above the USD 64 a-barrel mark — a two-year high level.
Surging crude prices could hurt fiscal deficit target of the government for current year and spur market concerns over the nation’s inflation outlook.
India is the second-largest crude oil consumer in Asia after China.
Imminent higher interest rate environment arising out of the US Federal Reserve’s hawkish tone along with rapidly surging crude oil prices worldwide largely kept forex market undertone more nervous.
Besides, the overall sentiment turned little uneasy on concern over a lack of progress on tax reform in the US.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and funds remained buyers of Indian equities and bought USD 1,036.26 million as per stock exchanges data.
In the meantime, country’s foreign exchange reserves declined by USD 22.2 million to USD 398.739 billion in the week to November 3, the RBI data showed.
At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market, the home currency resumed lower at 64.66 against the weekend close of 64.55 on fresh bouts of dollar demand from importers and corporates.
It remained under immense pressure and drifted sharply to breach the 65-mark to hit a low of 65.19 on Friday due to sudden spike in volatility amid sell-off in local equities.
The local unit finally settled with a steep losses of
61 paise, or 0.95 per cent at 65.16.
The Indian unit had recovered last week by a steep 50 paise.
The RBI fixed the reference rate for the USD at Rs
65.0147 and euro at Rs 75.7356, respectively.
On the global front, the greenback edged lower against a basket of currencies, scripting its biggest weekly drop in a month as investor disappointment that implementation of part of a planned big U.S. tax overhaul may be delayed until 2019.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major currencies, was down 0.06 percent to hit a two-week low of 94.38.
In cross-currency trade, the Indian currency reacted downwards against the British pound after recent steep rally, plunging by 130 paise to end at 85.67 per pound from 84.37 last weekend.
The local currency fell back against the Euro to close at 75.83 as compared to 75.14 and also drifted back against the Japanese Yen to settle at 57.43 per 100 yens from 56.56 earlier.
In the forward market, premium for dollar declined due to fresh receiving from exporters.
The benchmark six-month forward dollar premium payable for April slipped to 132.50-134.50 paise from 137-139 paise and the far-forward contract maturing in October 2018 also moved down to 273-275 paise from 276-278 paise last Friday.
In global commodity trade, crude prices surged nearly 3 per cent for the fifth week in a row following a sharp spike in demand in the midst of the political situation in Saudi Arabia, which trigged a rally for the benchmark to trade above the USD 64-a-barrel mark – a two-year high.
Despite aggressive production out of the US, the price of oil has risen nearly 35% from the low seen in late June. (PTI)
