Market Wrap, Feb 19: Here's all that happened in the markets today

Extending their decline into the fourth straight day on the back of rising bond yield, higher commodity price, disappointing US jobs data, and extended profit-booking, benchmark indices ended the week with over a per cent cut.

On Friday, though, the frontline S&P BSE Sensex nursed losses of 435 points, or 0.85 per cent, to end the day at 50,890 levels. In the intra-day trade, the index tanked 800 points from the day's high to hit a low of 50,624. Only 11 of the 30 constituents ended the day in green with ONGC (down 5 per cent), SBI and Axis Bank (down 3.5 per cent each), ICICI Bank (3 per cent), Baja Auto (2.6 per cent), and Maruti Suzuki (2 per cent) being the top losers.

Gains in Dr Reddy's Labs (2.3 per cent), IndusInd Bank (2 per cent), HUL (1.7 per cent), and RIL (0.7 per cent) trimmed losses.

On the NSE, the Nifty50 index gave up the 15,000-mark and settled at 14,982 levels, down 137 points or 0.9 per cent. The steady decline over the past four days, however, has eased the oscillators/indicators out of the overbought region. A move above 15,060 early next week could take the index to 15,240 over the next few days. On the downside, 14,753-14,900 could act as a good support in the near term.

That apart, broader markets, too, gave up their winning ways today and ended in the red. The S&P BSE MidCap index underperformed on the BSE and settled 1.7 per cent down today. The SmallCap counterpart, meanwhile, closed 0.7 per cent lower.

Sectorally, none of the indices ended in the green zone. The Nifty PSU bank index ended as the top laggard on the NSE, down 4.7 per cent, after surging nearly 6 per cent each over the past two days. That apart, Nifty Metal, Bank, and Auto indices skid 2 per cent each.  

Among individual stocks, shares of IDFC First Bank hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 63.05, up 9 per cent in the intra-day trade, on the BSE after the bank's board approved raising up to Rs 3,000 crore. The stock was quoting 7 per cent higher at close.

That apart, the Nifty PSU Bank index hit a fresh 52-week high of 2,661 on the NSE today amid improved earnings and privatisation hope. Thus far in the month of February, the Nifty PSU Bank index has zoomed over 40 per cent, as compared to a 10 per cent rise in the Nifty50 index.

Shares of Dr Reddy's Labs, too, bounced back from lows and ended over 2% higher after the company said it has initiated the process with the Drugs Controller General of India for Emergency Use Authorization of Russia's Covid-19 vaccine candidate, Sputnik V.

Global markets

Investor sentiment took a hit on Friday as data showed euro zone business activity slowing in February, while German and British 10-year bond yields touched multi-month high.

The pan European index was up 0.1 per cent, while London's FTSE index was 0.1 per cent weaker.

In Asia, MSCI world equity benchmark was up 0.1 per cent, MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside of Japan was down 0.1 per cent, while E-mini futures for the S&P 500 were broadly flat.

Oil futures, too, slipped around 1.5 per cent today with Brent Crude futures last hovering around $63/bbl-mark.

In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin closed-in on a market value of $1 trillion. The largest token has added more than $415 billion of value in 2021 to about $956 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.