Sensex falls 250 pts, Nifty slips below 11,100, all sectors end in red; OMCs shine, bankers plunge

India’s stock markets ended on a negative note with Sensex falling nearly 250 points, Nifty slipping below 11,100, all sectoral indices ending in red while shares of OMCs (Oil Marketing Companies) shone, on the other hand, bankers plunged. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex lost as much as 249.52 points or 0.69% to finish at 36,033.73 and the wider share indicator Nifty shed 80.75 points or 0.73% to conclude at 11,049.65 on Tuesday. All the sectoral indices of National Stock Exchange ended in red with Nifty Bank, Nifty Fin Service, Nifty IT, Nifty Media, Nifty Pvt Bank and Nifty Realty falling 0.8-1.1%. Shares of oil marketing companies such as Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation rose 2-5% whereas shares of heavyweight banks companies such Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank, ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank, HDFC Bank lost 0.2-3% in Tuesday’s trade.

Heavyweights tumble

Shares of heavyweight companies such as Reliance Industries, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Infosys, Axis Bank, TCS, and Asian Paints contributed heavily to the Sensex losses on Tuesday. Collectively these eight stocks washed off as much as 220 points out of the 249-point drop in the index. The stock of Asian Paints, Reliance Industries, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Infosys, Axis Bank, TCS, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Dr Reddy’s, Adani Ports, Yes Bank and Wipro lost 1-2.3% today.

Broader indices

Other than oil marketers, shares of Hero MotoCorp, Coal India, Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharma, SBI and Power Grid emerged as the notable gainers among the 50-share barometer Nifty. Among the broader market indices of NSE, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 100, Nifty 200, Nifty 500, Nifty Mid100 Free, Nifty Sml100 Free and Nifty Midcap 50 shed 0.5-1.7% with Nifty Sml100 Free sinking the most while India Vix tripped 8.23%. During the day, BSE Sensex dropped 289.84 points to hit the day’s low of 35,993.41 and NSE Nifty slumped by 96.5 points to mark the day’s low at 11,033.9.

Big movers

Shares of Indian Oil Corporation  advanced as much as 5.81% to Rs 421.95 before settling up 4.23% at Rs 415.6 after the state-run oil refiner IOC reported a jump of 97% in the standalone net profit to Rs 7,883.22 crore for the quarter ended 31 December 2017 with the GRM (gross refining margins) spiking to $8.28 per bbl for the nine-month period from April to December 2017.

The PSU giant had posted a profit of Rs 3,994.91 crore in the October-December quarter of the financial year 2016-2017. Sequentially, a rise of 113.27% was seen in the standalone net profit from Rs 3,696.29 crore in the second-quarter for the financial year 2017-2018. Indian Oil Corporation has also announced an interim dividend of Rs 19 per share. Shares of ADAG’s telecom company RCom surged as much as much as 18.9% to the day’s high of Rs 32.4 before ending up 10.46% at Rs 30.1 after the net loss of the Reliance Communications narrowed to Rs 130 crore for the quarter ended 31 December 2017.

Reliance Communications on Monday reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 130 crore for the October-December quarter of the financial year 2017-2018, mainly on the account of closure of its loss-making mobile telephony business. Sequentially, a sharp drop was seen in the consolidated net loss from Rs 2,712 crore in July-September 2017 period. “RCom’s planned exit from the consumer business has achieved more than the desired results. RCom has reduced its net loss by over 95%. Rcom expects to deliver even better financial performance in the coming quarters,” RCom Chairman Anil Dhirubhai Ambani said in a statement.