The Indian equity benchmark ended with minor gains to break a five-day losing streak in yet another volatile session on March 16. The 30-pack Sensex closed at 57,634.84, up 78.94 points, or 0.14 percent, and the broad-based Nifty at 16,985.60, up 13.40 points, or 0.08 percent.
After a flat start, the market gyrated between gains and losses but managed to close in the green amid buying in power, oil & gas, FMCG, realty and pharma names.
"With the turbulence at Credit Suisse and ahead of the ECB policy announcement, investors' attention has switched to developments in the European market," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
Consistently unfavourable signs in global markets are encouraging investors to move to safe havens such as the dollar and gold, while FIIs are withdrawing funds from the domestic market in response to the Indian rupee's depreciation, he said.
"Though the SVB & Credit Suisse crises have eased, the market lacks the confidence to hold positions on contagion fears," Nair added.
Also Read: India sees steepest m-cap drop among world's top markets in March quarter
Stocks and sectors
Top Nifty losers included Hindalco Industries, Tata Steel, JSW Steel, IndusInd Bank and Bharti Airtel, while gainers were BPCL, Nestle India, Asian Paints, HUL and Titan Company.
On the sectoral front, the Nifty metal index shed 2.5 percent and the information technology index declined 0.7 percent. FMCG, energy and pharma indices, however, rose a percent each, while the PSU bank index added 0.5 percent.
The BSE midcap index ended flat and the smallcap index lost 0.7 percent.
On the BSE, oil & gas, power, FMCG, realty indices added 1 percent each, while bank and healthcare indices ended on a positive note. On the other hand, the metal index shed 2.7 percent, information technology index 0.7 percent and capital goods index 0.3 percent.
More than 300 stocks touched their 52-week low on the BSE, including Reliance Industries, Vodafone Idea, Jyoti Structures, Wockhardt, Hindustan Oil Exploration, Wipro, V-MART Retail, Jubilant Pharmova, Suven Life Sciences and Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals.
Among individual stocks, a volume spike of more than 200 percent was seen in Samvardhana Motherson International, Zee Entertainment Enterprises and BPCL.
A long build-up was seen in ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, Zee Entertainment Enterprises and HPCL, while a short build-up was seen in Samvardhana Motherson International, Hindalco Industries and Jindal Steel.
Outlook for March 17
Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart
After five days of losses, there has been some market recovery. Despite significant intraday volatility, all major indices managed to finish positive. In the short term, the continued volatility and weakness of global cues will be a major driving force. Yet, we are trading close to a crucial support level and are severely oversold, so any good trigger could result in a dead cat bounceback.
World markets will attempt to position themselves for forthcoming US Fed policies amid financial sector unrest.
Technically, the Nifty ended with a Doji candlestick near the important support zone of 16,950–16,900. If the Nifty manages to bounce back from here, we can expect the market to move towards 17,250 and 17,440.
For uptrend, the Nifty should close above 17,050, which is the 100-week moving average but if it slips below 16,800, we can expect more pressure.
The Bank Nifty ended with a spinning bottom candlestick formation near the important support level of 38,700.
The 200-DMA of 39,600 is the immediate hurdle, above which we can expect a short-covering move towards 40,500 and 41,000. If it slips below 38,500, it can slide to 38,000–37,700 zone.
Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services
Domestic equities arrested their five-day losing streak after the Swiss National Bank agreed to provide financial aid to Credit Suisse Group.
Fresh concern over Credit Suisse failure aggravated fears on how deep-rooted the banking crisis could get. Its ripple effect has been felt across the globe. The Nifty lost 4 percent over in the last six sessions. We expect the weakness to continue in the near term, with the focus on the European Central Bank meeting later in the day and the US Fed outcome next week. The commentary on the turmoil in the financial sector would be crucial for the market.
We expect oil marketing companies, cement and paints stocks to remain in focus as benchmark Brent crude falls to a 15-month low of $73 a barrel.
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