Market Wrap Podcast, Oct 28: Here's all that happened in the markets today

The key benchmark indices broke respective psychological levels in trade on Thursday amid heavy broad-based sell-off.

Souring the sentiment was a fresh downgrade of Indian equities by another global brokerage. Morgan Stanley has become the latest foreign brokerage - after Nomura and UBS - to downgrade Indian equities.

"We move tactically Equal-Weight on India equities after strong relative gains - we expect a structural multi-year earnings recovery, but at 24x fwd P/E we look for some consolidation ahead of Fed tapering,an RBI hike in February and higher energy costs," it said in a note.

Overall, while the Sensex closed 1,158 points lower at 59,985, the Nifty lost 354 points to end the day at 17,857 levels.

In the process, the Nifty has slipped below its 20-DMA, which has opened the door for further downside, technical chartists said.

The next support level for the Nifty is around 17,650 level. Below this, 17,450-17,250 will be the next support zone. On the upside, 18,150-18,300 has become an immediate supply zone.

Financial shares, mainly PSU banks, metals and realty shares bore the brunt of the selling pressure today.

The broader indices also cracked in trade, with the NSE Midcap 150 index down 1.7 per cent, and the Smallcap 250 index down 1.6 per cent. India VIX jumped 6.4 per cent to 17.91.

Among sectors, the NSE PSU Bank index tanked over 5 per cent. The Bank Nifty, Realty and Metal indices slumped around 3.5 per cent each. All sectoral indices on the NSE were down over a per cent each, with FMCG, Media, Pharma and Oil & Gas as the other prominent losers.

Bucking the weak market trend, however, some shares rallied in this weak market. Shares of IRCTC, for instance, rallied 19 per cent to Rs 984 on the BSE in Thursday's intra-day trade after the scrip turned ex-stock split in the ratio of 1:5. The stock of IRCTC had hit a record high of Rs 1,279 (adjusted to stock split) on October 19, 2021.

That apart, shares of IndusInd Bank surged over 6 per cent to Rs 1,213 on the BSE in today's intra-day trade after the bank posted steady operational performance for the quarter ended September 2021 (Q2FY22). The lender's net interest income rose by 11.6 per cent year-on-year and 2.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 3,658 crore. Net interest margins for the quarter were stable at 4.07 per cent.

On the contrary, shares of ITC dipped 5 per cent to Rs 225.80 on the BSE in Thursday's intra-day trade after the cigarette-to-hotels major reported a 10.09 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 3,765 crore in Q2FY22, led by a recovery across segments. With today's fall, the market price of ITC has declined 15 per cent from its 52-week high level of Rs 265.30, touched on October 10, 2021.

Now, coming to primary market action, Paytm IPO will be at $19.5 billion to $20 billion valuation, the company officially revealed for the first time on Thursday. Paytm was valued at $16 billion when it raised funds two years ago. The fintech behemoth has raised its initial public offering size to Rs 18,300 crore from the earlier Rs 16,600 crore. The IPO will open on Nov 8.

Meanwhile, the initial public offer of Nykaa, which opened today, has been subscribed 1.32 times so far.

As regards Friday, primary market focus will be on Nykaa's initial share sale, which will enter its second day, while Fino Payments Bank's Rs 1,200-crore IPO will open for three days.

In the secondary market, all eyes will be on the 200 companies slated to report their September quarter results. These include Nazara Tech, BPCL, and Vedanta.