After a sharp sell-off in last hour of the trade, domestic equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty, settled lower on Wednesday. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the number of confirmed cases in India have risen to 28. The S&P BSE Sensex ended 214.22 points lower at 38,409 while the broader Nifty 50 index dropped 52 points to 11,251. “The market has already factored in a rate cut from the US fed in yesterday’s trading session but rising worries of Coronavirus is acting as a dominant factor for the high volatility in the equity markets. The market is trying to find a bottom after a vertical fall but there is a need for some kind of relief on the Coronavirus front for the market to witness any relief rally,” Santosh Meena, Senior Analyst, TradingBells said.

What kept investors on edge in today’s trade-

Top gainers and losers on S&P BSE Sensex- Among the top gainers were Sun Pharma, Asian Paints, Tech Mahindra and Power Grid. While the losers were led by IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance, ITC and UltraTech Cement.

Most of the sectoral indices in red- Barring Nifty IT and Nifty Pharma index, all the sectoral indices closed in red. Nifty Bank index dropped 500 points dragged by Yes bank, IndusInd Bank and HDFC Bank. Conversely, Nifty IT index settled higher led by gains in Tech Mahindra, Wipro, TCS and Infosys.

Coronavirus cases in India rise- Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Wednesday confirmed the number of coronavirus cases in India have risen to 28, one in Delhi, six in Agra, 16 Italians and Indian driver, one in Telangana and three in Kerala.

US Fed rate cut- On Tuesday, US Federal Reserve cuts interest rates in an attempt to protect the world’s largest economy from the impact of coronavirus. In a statement, the central bank said it was cutting rates by a half percentage point to a target range of 1.00% to 1.25%, as per Reuters news report.

Technical observation- “After showing a decent upside bounce from the lows, Nifty failed to show follow-through upmove in today’s session. Nifty witnessed high volatility and closed the day lower. A reasonable negative candle was formed today with long lower shadow. Today’s intraday chart indicate a ‘V’ type intraday pattern, where we observe a sharp weakness and steep upside recovery in a day, “Nagaraj Shetti – Technical Analyst, HDFC securities said.