Mid-day Mood | Sensex, Nifty pulled down by Israel-Iran tensions; India VIX jumps 5%

Equity benchmarks the 30-pack Sensex and the broad-based Nifty continued to traded lower on April 15 afternoon, weighed down by losses in banking, consumer, and technology names. Growing Iran-Israel tensions stoked concerns of spike in oil prices and commodity supply weakened investors’ risk appetite.

At around noon, the Sensex was down 505.13 points, or 0.68 percent, at 73,739.77, and the Nifty was down 145.60 points or 0.65 percent at 22,373.80. The market breadth steered towards loses as around - 701 shares advanced, 2,612 shares declined, and 110 shares unchanged.

India VIX, which measures near-term volatility also jumped more than 5 percent to 12.14.

At this time of uncertainity, V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services advised investors to stay cautious. He expects IT stocks to remain resilient on the back of better-than-expected numbers from TCS and promising outlook for FY25. Banking, too, is expected to exhibit strength as results are likely to be good, he added.

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Sectoral trend

All sectors largely traded in negative territory on April 15 afternoon. Among the worst hit were Nifty Bank, Nifty FMCG, and Nifty Realty indices that lost over a percent each. On the flipside, Nifty Energy and Nifty Metal indices saw marginal gains.

Technical view

Anand James, Chief Market Strategist, Geojit Financial Services believes that if Nifty does not close above 22,200 or falls further below 21,800, it could confirm the break of bullish structure that had 23,200 in the horizon and line-up 20,300 instead.

Ramkrishna Forgings: The stock climbed 3 percent to Rs 709 on April 15 after the after the company secured orders for Vande Bharat train set. The total order value of Rs 270 crore is to be supplied to the BHEL-Titagarh consortium.

Exide Industries: The stock zoomed over 6 percent to hit a new 52-week high of Rs 423 on April 15 as Morgan Stanley raised the target price to Rs 485 from Rs 373 after citing multiple levers for growth for the company.

Aster DM Health: Shares of Aster DM Healthcare zoomed 14 percent to hit a fresh record high of Rs Rs 558 on the National Stock Exchange in early deals on April 15. The sharp rally comes after the company announced a special dividend of Rs 118 per share.

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