March F&O Series: Nifty 50 falls over 400 points to mark worst series since September

The Nifty 50 index managed to hold on to the 17,000 mark at the close of the March F&O series courtesy a recovery from the day's low in index heavyweight Reliance Industries and some inflows in the final 30 minutes owing to the index rebalancing.

However, the gains on Wednesday were not enough to prevent another negative F&O series for the index. The Nifty fell 431 points in the March series, registering its fourth straight negative F&O series. The last time the index registered four back-to-back negative series' was between November 2021 - February 2022.

The 400-point drop also meant that the Nifty 50 had its worst F&O series since September last year, during which the index had declined over 700 points.

18 constituents of the Nifty 50 index reported gains while 32 stocks ended lower for the series. After a dismal February series, Adani Group names were the top performers in March. Adani Enterprises ended with gains of 25 percent this series, while Adani Ports rose 15 percent.

Auto and IT were the biggest underperformers on the Nifty 50 during the March series. Six out of the top 10 losers on the Nifty 50 index for the series belonged to either of these sectors. Metals were the other major laggards in March.

The Nifty Bank index ended flat for the March series, registering an overall decline of 90 points. The index continued to move in the broad range of 39,000 - 40,000 but failed to breakout or break down on either side during the series.

Bank of Baroda was the top performer on the Nifty Bank index, ending nearly 6 percent higher, while Bandhan Bank continued to underperform, shedding 17 percent during the series.

"Nifty, as expected, seems to have made a short term bottom," Deepak Jasani of HDFC Securities said. "17,207 - 17,255 could be the next resistance for Nifty while 16,985 could be a support," he said.

Vinod Nair of Geojit Financial Services attribued Wednesday's positive close to positive movement in both US and European markets. "This volatility is expected to continue until the global banking system gets fully recovered from the turmoil, along with a confirmation of the Fed's decision to pause rate hikes," he said.