Mumbai, Dec 27: The market corrected in last hour of trade on Wednesday after hitting fresh record highs intraday, weighed by concerns of rising crude oil prices and likely increase in government borrowing. Investors also remained cautious ahead of last expiry of the year.
Banks dragged the Sensex below psychological 34,000 level and the Nifty below 10,500-mark. However, pharma stocks outperformed all sectoral indices as the Nifty Pharma index gained 2.4 percent.
The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 98.80 points at 33,911.81 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 40.70 points to 10,490.80.
“With lack of any fresh positive triggers on the domestic bourses, we expect markets to consolidate in the near term. Markets would take cues from global developments and crude price movements in the near term,” Jayant Manglik, President, Retail Distribution, Religare Securities said.
He advises traders to remain cautious and be selective in stock picking, while investors can accumulate quality stocks on dips.
The broader markets also traded in line with benchmarks as the Nifty Midcap fell 0.12 percent. About 973 shares declined against 590 advancing shares on the NSE.
Meanwhile, finance ministry sources said the government is likely to borrow more than its FY18 Budget target and may shortly issue statement on fiscal situation, reports CNBC-TV18 quoting NewsRise.
Experts said if the government borrows more than Rs 25,000 crore then that will hurt market sentiment.
Oil marketing companies – IOC, HPCL and BPCL were down 1-2 percent after Brent crude futures on Tuesday hit USD 67 a barrel, the highest level since May 2015, following an explosion on a Libyan crude pipeline as well as voluntary OPEC-led supply cuts. However, crude futures corrected after yesterday’s rally, falling 1.06 percent to USD 66.31 a barrel, at the time of writing this article.
Reliance Communications surged 35 percent on top of 31 percent rally in previous session after its mega debt restructuring plan.
Sun Pharma rallied surged 6.5 percent after the US health regulator accepted new drug application (NDA) for OTX-101, dry eye solution filed by company’s subsidiary. Its subsidiary SPARC also gained 8 percent.
Aurobindo Pharma was up 1 percent after receiving approval from the US health regulator for Fondaparinux Sodium injection while Glenmark Pharma rallied 2 percent on approval from the US health regulator for birth control pill.
Alembic Pharma was up 2 percent after its associate company, Rhizen Pharmaceuticals SA announced has USFDA has granted Orphan-Drug Designation for Tenalisib (RP6530).
Prestige Estates gained 7 percent on acquisition of 66.66 percent stake in a Group Company, Prestige Projects Private Limited for Rs 324 crore. Sanghi Industries was up 9 percent after Motilal Oswal has initiated coverage with ‘Buy’ rating on the stock.
McNally Bharat was up 4 percent on winning order worth Rs 133.5 crore from Vedanta and 3i Infotech surged 17 percent on repayment of principal outstanding debt.
ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, ITC, SBI, TCS and L&T among others were down 0.6-1.7 percent whereas Vedanta, Tech Mahindra and Wipro gained 1-2 percent.
On the global front, Asian markets closed mixed while European stocks were trading flat to marginally higher at the time of writing this article.