Benchmarks at record highs but market breadth remains weak

FIIs net bought Rs 4671 crore on May 23 while DIIs net bought Rs 147 crore as per provisional data from exchanges.

Concentrated buying by foreign investors in index heavyweights and large caps on May 23 ensured that the benchmark indices touched record highs even as the broader market breadth remained weak.

On BSE, more than 2,000 stocks -- 2,071 to be precise -- ended the day in the red as against 1,762 advances. Incidentally, of the 16 trading sessions in the current month till May 23, market breadth has been negative only on seven occasions.

Meanwhile, 1,370 stocks declined on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), higher than 1,252 advances.

"FIIs were sellers all these days, but today they bought almost Rs 4,000 crore in index heavyweights, so the market breadth was weak (even though the benchmarks touched record highs)," said Kranthi Bathini, director of equity strategy at WeatlhMills Securities.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) were net buyers at Rs 4,671 crore on May 23 while DIIs net bought Rs 147 crore as per provisional data from exchanges.

"There was concentrated buying in the large-cap stocks today by the FIIs, and they won't typically go for midcaps and smallcaps, so the market breadth was weak," said Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities.

At close, the Sensex was up 1,196.98 points or 1.61 percent at 75,418.04. On the other hand, Nifty was up 369.90 points or 1.64 percent at 22,967.70.
Nifty Midcap 100 index also touched a fresh high of 52,452.65 during intraday trades before closing at 52,418.55, up 0.48 percent. BSE Midcap index closed a marginal 0.5 percent higher while the Smallcap index was up 0.3 percent.

Except metal and pharma, all other sectoral indices ended in the green with auto, bank and capital goods up 2 percent each.

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