Stock market today: Sensex, Nifty 50 fall for fourth consecutive session; mid, smallcaps outperform

Stock market today: Indian stock market benchmarks—the Sensex and the Nifty 50—extended their losing run into the fourth consecutive session on Wednesday, July 24, even as the mid-and small-cap segments recorded healthy gains.

Sensex fell 280 points, or 0.35 per cent, to end at 80,148.88, while the Nifty 50 ended the day with a loss of 66 points, or 0.27 per cent, at 24,413.50.

The fall in the benchmark indices could be largely attributed to profit booking in select banking and FMCG stocks.

Shares of HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Hindustan Unilever, SBI and Kotak Mahindra Bank, ended as the top drags on the Nifty index.

“Profit-taking continued as investors cut their position in banking and automobile stocks, which led to a fall in key benchmark indices. However, markets ended off their lows on selective buying support although concerns of higher valuations continue to weigh,” said Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities.

The mid and smallcap segments outperformed the benchmarks. The BSE Midcap index rose 0.68 per cent, while the Smallcap index jumped 1.91 per cent.

Due to the gains in the mid and small-cap stocks, the overall market capitalisation of the firms listed on the BSE rose to nearly ₹449.6 lakh crore from nearly ₹446.4 lakh crore in the previous session, making investors richer by about ₹3.2 lakh crore in a single session.

With the Budget over, the market has shifted focus to Q1 earnings, the macro environment, global cues, and stock fundamentals.

Experts said the upward revision in long-term and short-term capital gain taxes will weigh on market sentiment for the short term.

"The Budget event has gone by leaving a mixed bias while reshuffling of capital gain tax is only a short-term negative surprise. The broad market seems to be losing momentum due to lack of further traction," said Vinod Nair, the head of research at Geojit Financial Services.

"Domestic investors are biased, but strong government fiscal and growth policy is attractive for FIIs (foreign institutional investors), which will help to hold the ground. The recovery noticed from today's low will be evident only after tomorrow's monthly expiry. At the same time, the ongoing Q1 results, which to date are muted, will decide the near-term trend," Nair said.

As many as 30 stocks ended in the red in the Nifty 50 index.

Shares of Bajaj Finserv (down 2.09 per cent), Tata Consumer (down 1.90 per cent) and Britannia (down 1.88 per cent) closed as the top losers in the Nifty 50 index.

On the other hand, shares of HDFC Life (up 4.36 per cent), Tech Mahindra (up 3.12 per cent) and BPCL (up 2.91 per cent) closed as the top gainers in the index.

Among the sectoral indices, Nifty Bank index fell 0.89 per cent, while the Private Bank index and the PSU Bank index fell 0.76 per cent and 0.35 per cent, respectively.

Nifty Financial Services (down 0.60 per cent) and FMCG (down 0.53 per cent) also ended with significant losses.

However, Nifty Media (up 2.47 per cent) ended with strong gains. Nifty Oil and Gas (up 1.69 per cent), Consumer Durables (up 1.08 per cent), Realty (up 0.78 per cent) and Pharma (up 0.74 per cent) ended with healthy gains.

According to Jatin Gedia, a technical research analyst at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, on the daily charts, the Nifty 50 traded within the range of the previous trading session. The intraday pullback fizzled out at the key hourly moving averages placed in the range of 24,480 – 24,520.

Gedia said the trend for the Nifty 50 has changed to rangebound between 24,800 – 23,800.

"The daily momentum indicator has a sell signal, and thus, the ideal strategy would be to sell on the rise around the resistance zone 24,500 – 24,550. On the downside, we expect levels of 24,200 – 24,000 from a short-term perspective," said Gedia.

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