Markets end lower amid profit booking; pharma stocks shine

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After trading in the green for the most part of the day equity benchmarks succumbed to the fag-end sell-off and closed in the red tracking a negative trend in global equities. Sensex ended 66 points or 0.13% lower at 52,586, while Nifty 50 settled at 15,763, down 15 points or 0.10%.

“Taking support from pharma, fertiliser and auto stocks, the domestic market attempted to trade positively but failed to stick with the gains amid weak global trend. Eurozone inflation in July rose to 2.2% YoY above European Central Bank’s target impacting the European market and the Chinese market was fragile too. Pharma stocks were back on action beating early worries of weak Q1 results as recent quarterly of major companies were in favour of market expectation. Fertilizer stocks were in focus today as Chinese firms were asked to suspend exports in order to ensure domestic supply,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

Gainers & losers

Sectoral strand

Sectoral indices ended mix with the Nifty Pharma index soaring 3.63% followed by the Nifty Auto index 0.92%. While Nifty IT, Nifty Realty and Nifty FMCG indices rose anywhere between 0.17-0.36%. On the downside, Nifty Metal and Nifty Bank indices lost 0.70% and 0.31% respectively.

Broader markets

The broader market bucked the trend and ended higher. BSE MidCap index rose 0.52% to 23,087 whereas the BSE SmallCap index settled at 26,786 rallying as much as 0.69%.

Overall market breadth was positive as 1,846 shares advanced compared to 1,388 declined while 133 remained unchanged.

Global markets

European markets and Asian stocks declined across the board on Friday, 30 July 2021 amid escalating coronavirus concerns. Chinese stocks continued to witness significant volatility, as losses were seen again – a day after they clawed back some gains following a dive early this week.

European stocks opened lower after closing the previous session at all-time highs, as investors reacted to another deluge of corporate earnings and economic data.

The surge in the Covid-19 infections worldwide has been relentless, with spiking cases in the US and Japan so much so that the world’s third-largest economy is set to expand the state of emergency on Friday to Tokyo’s three neighbouring prefectures of Osaka, Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa.

The Covid-19 outbreak in Malaysia has become one of the worst globally. On a seven-day moving average basis, Malaysia reportedly recorded 483.72 confirmed Covid-19 infections per million people on Wednesday — the eighth highest globally and top in Asia. The country’s daily reported deaths relating to Covid-19 were around 4.90 per million people on Tuesday on a seven-day moving average basis. That is reportedly the 19th highest globally and the third highest in Asia.

Japan’s industrial output jumped 6.2% in June, sharply rising from a 6.5% drop in May. June retail sales rose 0.1% from a year earlier.