Market Wrap Podcast, July 16: Here's all that happened in the markets today

The benchmark indices failed to hold gains after hitting all-time highs in early trade amid profit booking in major sectors, barring pharma. BSE Sensex ended its two-day winning run and settled at 53,140, down 19 points. Its NSE counterpart Nifty50 closed the day 0.80 points lower at 15,923. Both Sensex and Nifty had hit record highs of 53,290.81 and 15,962.25, respectively in trade earlier. Nifty, meanwhile, snapped its 2-week losing run and rose 1.5%.

HCL Tech, Infosys Bajaj Finserv and ICICI Bank turned out to be the worst losers in the Sensex pack, down between 1-3 per cent. Telecom major Airtel, Ultratech Cement, Tata Steel and PowerGrid emerged to best performers.

Strong buying interest was seen in pharma shares ahead of Q1 results that are expected to be strong. Nifty Pharma hence clocked a 1.16% gain, followed by Nifty Realty and Nifty Metal that too added 1% each. IT stocks although witnessed heavy selling especially after a near 5% rally in the last two days. The Nifty IT index declined 1.07% today.

Demand for mid-and small-cap stocks remained strong, pushing both the indices to record highs in trade today. The BSE Midcap closed 0.45% higher and BSE Smallcap 0.38%.

On the stock-specific front, shares of Angel Broking soared 20 per cent to Rs 1,272.15 on the NSE after its net profit more-than-doubled to Rs 121.4 crore from Rs 47.3 crore posted in the year-ago quarter.

Cyient too logged strong gains following its Q1 show. The company posted a 41 per cent YoY rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 115 crore in the June quarter following which the scrip closed 12 per cent higher on the BSE at Rs 1,061.70.

Wipro ended flat at Rs 577.65 post its Q1 show although it did hit a fresh high of Rs 589 in the intra-day session.

IRCTC jumped 6.97 per cent to Rs 2427 amid expectations of improved outlook. The stock has added nearly 20 per cent so far this month.

Primary market remained abuzz as Paytm filed DRHP for Rs 16,600 crore IPO with Sebi. If approved, it could be India's biggest IPO in recent, beating Rs 15,200 crore issue by Coal India. Zomato IPO's subscription gathered pace as the issue received 38 times bids as of 4 pm on Day 3 while Tatva Chintan Pharma Chem, which opened today, already sailed through, with 4 times bids so far.

Going into trade next week, market action would be dictated by stock-specific moves amid quarterly earnings by HCL Tech, Asian Paints, Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Auto, HUL, JSW Steel, ICICI Bank, ITC and HUL to name a few. Besides, shares of Clean Science and GR Infraprojects would list on bourses on Monday. With a slew of DRHPs being filed, more companies could hit Street to raise funds via IPO, keeping activity high in the primary market.

Globally, shares held gains in European markets although Asian stocks ended largely weak. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 0.4%, weighed down by a 1.1% drop in China's blue-chip index and a 0.8% fall for Taiwanese shares. Britain's FTSE 100 meanwhile was up 0.4%. US futures advanced, indicating a strong opening for Wall Street.