Mkts take a breather after five sessions of gains

By Ayesha Faridi/CNBC-TV18

After a week of gains we finally chose to take a breather today. The opening was not all that bad. We made that high of about 15,130 but pulled off almost 300 points from the day’s high. It finally closed with a downward tick of about 1.1%. The Nifty was way off the day’s highs, 4,433 is how it shut shop. Most indices in Asia gained but they didn’t really run up like we did in the past two sessions.

The broader markets were a bit better today, while it was just a bit soft for both the midcap and smallcap indices. The Nifty Junior took a harder hit and was down about 0.6%. The market breadth started off okay and finally closed with almost 800 stocks in the red. Turnover was not as impressive as yesterday but definitely on the higher side. But BSE and NSE Cash put together did okay and the F&O activity was also fairly high, with the total being Rs 83,000 crore.

Technology was the big eye sore in today’s trading session. Most counters were really under pressure, down anywhere over 2%. TCS was down almost 7%. Telecom led by Bharti ‑ despite reasonably good numbers ‑  was down about 2%. Reliance Communications took a sharper knock and so did Idea on its numbers today.

Metals was another sector that saw some weakness today. Tata Steel was down almost 5.5% today. Other index losers include the likes of Tata Power, ACC, SBI, and a couple of the banking counters. Even RPL and NTPC that did well yesterday saw some bit of profit-booking as well.

The entire fertiliser pack was trading in the green. RCF, Nagarjuna Fertilisers, and Chambal Fertilisers did well. Oil and gas was another pack. Reliance ahead of its numbers did not look bad at all. About 2% gain coming in that. ONGC did well, up 3%. RNRL continued its upmove from yesterday with a 9% move on that.

A couple of other gainers were Zee Entertainment, which reacted to its numbers. GMR Infra, Voltas, and Reliance Power all held out quite nicely. So, it was sort of lazy day for the markets.