Throughout March 2015, the broad index of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Sensex was seen under pressure, having fallen 6.48 per cent during this period and cancelling out all gains made in the first two months of 2015.
Meanwhile, during the last week of March, the BSE Sensex fell 2.75 per cent and closed at 27,458.64 points.
Jayant Manglik, president, retail distribution, Religare Securities says, “After a sharp sell-off on Thursday, equity benchmarks managed to end on flat note on Friday amid excessive intraday volatility.” Extending the prevailing negative bias, it slipped below the crucial support mark of 8,300 on intra-day basis in the first half, but rebound in banking and capital goods majors helped the index to close flat.
Alex Mathews, head research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services says, “Major technical indicators still looks weak, but the RSI (relative Strength Index) is in the oversold region, helped the market to recover.” Due to banking holidays and exchange holidays in the next week, participants seemed reluctant to create large open positions in the April series.
On the stocks’ front, the major losers were telecom stocks – IDEA and Bharti Airtel – falling 5.12 per cent and 4.85 per cent, respectively during the week, whereas the gainers were IDFC and Hindalco rising 4.33 per cent and 3.40 per cent, respectively in the same period.
The FIIs were sellers in the cash markets segment, selling shares worth Rs 521.23 crore on Thursday. On the other hand, the DIIs were net buyers on the same day having bought shares worth Rs 687.09 crore as per the provisional data from the stock exchanges.
Of the total number of companies eligible for trading – 4,226 on the BSE as on March 27 – 123 remained unchanged, 1,070 stocks went up and 1,774 fell.
The best performing stocks as mentioned on the BSE website among group A stocks were: Tata Elxsi (+7.14 per cent), Hexaware (+6.65 per cent), Aurobindo Pharma (+6.04 per cent), Atul (+5.18 per cent) and Century Textiles & Industries (+5.08 per cent). Meanwhile, among the top losers were: Bhushan Steel (-7.98 per cent), Bharti Airtel (-5.64 per cent), Idea (-4.96 per cent), Rasoya Proteins (-4.69 per cent) and Cyient (-4.49 per cent).
Manglik believes that shorts are advisable on bounce but with strict stop losses. “Energy, Metal, Realty and PSU banking looks weakest amongst all the sectoral indices so traders may choose stocks from these segment for fresh short positions,” he says.
The European markets rebounded from a two-day drop and the US index futures were trading lower.