Stock Market Highlights: Sensex falls 20 points; Nifty ends volatile session above 15,100; Mid, smallcaps outperform

Rahul Gupta, Head of Research- Currency, Emkay Global Financial Services

The USDINR spot is trading within the tight range of 72.75-73.15. Currently, the market is flat and volatility is muted. The upbeat sentiments on account of optimism about a global recovery and inflows into local stocks will help Indian Rupee to appreciate, but likely RBI intervention at around 72.80-75.75 zone may limit the fall in USDINR pair. So we will expect USDINR spot to continue to trade sideways with bearish bias in between 72.75-73.20 zone. The 72.75 mark is acting as strong support and break of which could push prices towards 72.50. However, on upside 73.05-73.20 will continue to act as strong resistance levels.

Market At Close

- Nifty Holds On To 15,100 & Sensex 51,300

- Midcap Index Relatively Outperforms, Closes Nearly 1% Higher

- HDFC Bank Drags Nifty By 31 Points While Reliance Lifts By 14 Points

- Nifty Slips 3 Points To 15,107 & Sensex 20 Points To 51,309

- Midcap Index Rises 179 Pts To 22,926 While Nifty Bank Slips 273 Pts To 35,783

- Eciber Motors Top Nifty Loser After Reporting Operational Performance Below Estimates

- Bharti Airtel Sees Profit Booking After MSCI Weightage Increase, Slips Over 1%

- Tata Steel Falls Despite Reporting A Strong Set of Earnings, Down 5% From Highs

- Page Ind Surges Over 5% On Higher-than-expected Q3 Earnings

- Hindalco & GAIL Close With Gains As Well After Earnings

- Manali Petrol’s Strong Showing In Q3 Helps Co Close At Upper Circuit

- Market Breadth Slightly In Favour Of Advances; Advance-Decline Ratio At 1:1

Closing Bell | The Indian equity benchmark indices pared day's losses to end Wednesday's volatile session marginally lower. The Sensex ended 19.69 points, or 0.04 percent lower at 51,309.39, while the Nifty settled at 15,106.50, down 2.80 points, or 0.02 percent. Broader indices outperformed the benchmarks with Nifty Smallcap100 and Nifty Midcap 100 closing 0.7 percent higher.

Among sectors, Nifty Auto, Nifty Pharma, Nifty IT and Nifty Realty ended in the green, while Nifty FMCG, Nifty Fin Services and Nifty Private Bank ended lower. On the Nifty50 index, Eicher Motors, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Tata Steel and Britannia led the losses while, Cipla, Bajaj Finserv, SBI Life, HDFC Life, and M&M were the top gainers.

Datamatics Global Services | The company has entered into a strategic partnership with System Soft Technologies covering the North American region. The distribution agreement gives SSTech access to Datamatics’ Intelligent Automation (IA) suite of products including TruAI, TruCap+ and TruBot. SSTech will leverage Datamatics IA products to deploy automation with speed and scale for its enterprise customers.

Eicher Motors Q3FY21 | The company’s consolidated net profit rose 6.8 percent to Rs 532.6 crore from Rs 498.7 crore and revenue increased 19.3 percent to Rs 2,828.3 crore from Rs 2,371 crore, YoY. EBITDA rose 13.5 percent to Rs 672 crore from Rs 592.3 crore, while EBITDA margin narrowed by 130 bps to 23.7 percent from 25 percent, YoY.

Oil price rally falters despite unexpected drop in US inventories

Oil prices slipped on Wednesday, threatening to end the longest rally in two years as investors shrugged off industry data showing a fall in U.S. crude oil stocks that added to optimism about an expected rise in global fuel demand, a Reuters report said. Brent crude was down by 1 cent at $61.08 after rising nearly 1 pecent on Tuesday, when it touched a 13-month high. US crude dropped 8 cents to $58.28.

Brent had risen for eight days in a row, the longest sustained run of gains since January 2019. U.S. oil had gained for seven days, the longest rally since February 2019.

World shares hit fresh all-time highs; earnings and Fed in focus

World shares rose to new all-time highs overnight and European indexes strengthened, with market sentiment generally upbeat on the prospect of fiscal stimulus and vaccine rollouts and ahead of a speech by U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 countries, was up 0.2% at 0833 GMT, having touched new peaks shortly before, Reuters reported.

Buzzing | IndiGo shares fall nearly 3% after it settles case with SEBI

Indigo owner InterGlobe Aviation's share price tumbled nearly 3 percent in early trade on Wednesday after the company paid Rs 2.10 crore to SEBI to settle a pending case. The stock was 2.81 percent down to Rs 1,614.7on BSE, while it slipped 2.83 percent to Rs 1,614.70 on NSE.

InterGlobe Aviation has settled the case of alleged corporate governance lapses and listing norm violations raised by co-promoter Rakesh Gangwal in July 2019. Gangwal has differences over the matters of corporate governance with the co-promoter and majority shareholder Rahul Bhatia. Bhatia holds a majority of 38.21 percent shares, while Gangwal owns 36.64 percent shares and the public owns the rest.

Following the complaints, SEBI had issued a show-cause notice to the airline operator containing allegations on account of multiple LODR regulations. The company settled the matter on Tuesday without denying or admitting any violation on its part. Read more.

BEML Q3FY21 | The company's consolidated net profit jumped to Rs 27.7 crore from Rs 4.2 crore, while revenue rose 5.1 percent to Rs 728.2 crore from Rs 693 crore, YoY. Consolidated EBITDA increased 65.5 percent to Rs 42.8 crore from Rs 25.9 crore and EBITDA margin was at 5.9 percent as against 3.7 percent, YoY. The company announced an interim dividend of Rs 4.80 per share.

VA Tech Wabag | The company has secured multiple orders worth about 100 million euros in Switzerland, Tunisia and Libya.