Mid-day Mood | Sensex, Nifty trade in red for 2nd day as investors take money off the table

Infosys Ltd: Shares of the IT major fell 2.7 percent to Rs 1,439 fter the company's chief financial officer, Nilanjan Roy, stepped down from his post to pursue personal aspirations. Since Roy’s resignation comes at a time when tier-I information technology companies are suffering from an increasing number of top brass exits, it has dented sentiment. As a result, American Depository Receipts (ADRs) of Infosys also fallen.

The benchmark Sensex and Nifty extended their losses from the previous session and continued to trade in the red as of mid-day on December 13. Investors continued to book profits off the recent stellar gains as they await the US Federal Reserve's monetary policy outcome, due later today.

Around noon, the Sensex was down 383.87 points, or 0.55 percent, at 69,167.16, and the Nifty was down 119.30 points, or 0.57 percent, at 20,787.10. About 1,646 shares gained, 1,481 lost, while 88 traded unchanged.

Trend in the broader market also remained subdued as the Nifty Smallcap 100 and the Nifty Midcap 100 indices put up a flattish trend.

Sectoral trends

Given the subdued market trend, sectors like automobile, infra and FMCG remained muted, while banks, energy, metals, and PSU banks traded with minor losses.

The information technology pack remained under pressure, tracking overnight losses in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite. The Nifty IT index was hit hardest among sectoral indices, down over 2 percent.

Bucking the trend was the pharma index which was trading marginally higher.

Fundamental view

"The short-term undercurrent of the market is bullish, despite the high valuations. The growth momentum in the economy, the sustained buying by DIIs and retail investors, reversal of the FPI strategy from selling to buying and favourable global cues will keep the market resilient," said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

"From the global perspective, tonight’s Fed message is important in setting the global market trend. Markets will wait for the Fed chief’s message before taking a decisive turn," Vijayakumar said.

Technical view

"The Nifty can find support at 20,900, followed by 20,850 and 20,800. On the higher side, 21,020 can be an immediate resistance, followed by 21,100 and 21,150," said Deven Mehata, research analyst at Choice Broking.

"The charts of Bank Nifty indicate that it may get support at 47,000, followed by 46,800 and 46,700. If the index advances, 47,250 would be the initial key resistance level to watch out for, followed by 47,500 and 47,600," Mehata said.

On the radar

Retail inflation in the US rose 0.1 percent in November in-line with market expectations. On an on-year basis, the retail inflation rate was up 3.1 percent. Core inflation was slightly higher than estimates as it rose 0.3 percent in November.

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Key Nifty gainers

NTPC, Power Grid Corporation of India, Hero MotoCorp, Dr Reddy's Labs

Key Nifty losers

Infosys, TCS, HDFC Life, LTIMindtree

Key Sensex gainers

NTPC, Power Grid, IndusInd Bank

Key Sensex losers

Infosys, TCS, Bajaj Finserv

Stock moves

Adani Total Gas: Shares plunged nearly 10 percent as investors tried to book profit off the nearly 90 percent rally in the stock in the past month.

Axis Bank: Shares fell over 1 percent after a Rs 3,465 crore block deal took place on the exchanges. Moneycontrol couldn’t identify the buyers and sellers were but reports suggested that entities associated with Bain Capital were eyeing to offload stake via a block deal. The sellers could include BC Asia Investments VII, BC Asia Investments III, and Integral Investments South Asia IV.

Sunteck Realty: Stock slumped over 5 percent after a large deal worth Rs 336.4 crore took place in the counter.

Equitas Small Finance Bank: Shares gained around 3 percent following a rejig in the company's top-brass.

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