Volatility was once again the order of the day on the Indian bourses on Thursday. Taking cues from the US markets coupled with good opening in the Asian markets, the Indian stock markets opened on a positive note. However, profit booking at higher levels forced the markets to end in the red. The 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) after opening with a positive gap of around 320 points lost 372.33 points (2.12%) before finally closing at 17,221.74 points.
Meanwhile, the broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) lost 169 points (3.27%) before closing at 5,033.45 points. The Sensex and Nifty gyrated 1,115 points and 361 points respectively in the intra-day trades.
Despite positive closing by the US markets on Wednesday (DJIA gaining over 299 points) and positive opening in the European markets, the Indian and the Hong Kong markets ended losing heavily on Thursday. The Hong Kong?s Hang seng lost 550 points (2.29%) to close at 23,539.27 points.
Shashi Krishnan, CIO, Bajaj Allianz said, ?After correcting heavily in the last one week, the markets are going to remain highly volatile and range bound. As far as fundamentals are concerned, they are intact and, valuations, after so much of correction, seems to be good and people from the insurance fraternity are taking this opportunity to get into the markets?.
Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) including insurance companies were net buyers to the tune of Rs 1.117 crore while FIIs were net sellers at Rs 2,254 crore, the provisional data provided by the stock exchanges (SEs) indicated.
Across the board, selling made the overall markets breadth negative at the BSE with only 385 stocks rising as against 2,341 stocks that fell and 15 stocks remained unchanged. Heavy profit booking in the metal and the power stocks saw the respective sectoral indices falling in the range of 5% each before closing at 14,220.68 points and 3,733.47 points respectively.
Even the small- and mid-cap companies corrected in the range of 3.5% each, before finally closing at 7,537.90 points and 10,013.96 points respectively. In the derivatives segment a huge build up on the short side was witnessed in the Nifty futures for near and the mid month series with Nifty January series ending at a discount of 32.45 points at 5,001 points as compared to the spot price and the Nifty February contract ending at a discount of 44.65 points at 4,988.80 points. The open interest increased by 11.45% to 3.05 crore for current months contract.
