 "Smallcaps outperform in a weak market")
Markets ended the session on a weaker note amid volatility ahead of the futures and options expiry for the month of November, which is on Thursday.
Indian markets will remain closed tomorrow on account of Guru Nanak Jayanti.
Provisionally, the Sensex ended at 25,769 levels, down by 51 points and Nifty ended at 7,833 levels , down by 15 points.
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(updated 2:40 pm)
Domestic equities continue to remain listless in the late afternoon trades amid the weakness in global peers owing to selling pressure in select index heavyweights.
However, the downside is capped mainly due to buying witnessed in oil&gas and energy shares.
The market players are on the edge ahead of the monthly expiry of derivatives contract for the month of November on Thursday. Also, the winter session of the Parliament, which will begin on Thursday has kept them unnerved.
The monsoon session of the Parliament was a complete washout and the key legislations such as Good and Services Tax (GST) Bill did not sail through.
At 2:40 PM, the Sensex was down by 55 points at 25,764 and the Nifty has moved down by 19 points at 7,829
However, the broader markets continued to outperform the benchmark indices with BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices up between 0.2-0.4% each.
From the Midcap space, Chennai Petroleum has gained nearly 10%, followed by Jubilant Food, India Cements, Indian Overseas Bank, up over 4% each. From the smallcap space, Gammon India has jumped 20% to quote at Rs15.50
Meanwhile, markets will remain closed tomorrow on account of ‘Guru Nanak Jayanti.’
TRENDING STOCKS
Sectorally, BSE IT, Consumer Durables, Capital Goods, Auto indices were down between 0.3-0.7% each. However, the gains of over 1% in BSE Oil&Gas, Realty, Energy indices have arrested the downfall.
Individually, Maruti Suzuki is the top loser on the Sensex, down by 2% as the company is in the middle of a voting by minority shareholders for its upcoming Gujarat plant after claiming that it will have total control over the plant in spite of investments coming from parent company Suzuki.
Infosys is another sore point with losses of nearly 1%. As per the announcement on BSE, Ms. Carol M. Browner has resigned as Member of the Board and Independent Director of the Company with immediate effect, due to personal reasons.
Luxury British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) CEO informed that the company will post a lower pre-tax profit in 2015 than in the previous fiscal year, due to major investments and a blast at China's Tianjin port that destroyed thousands of its cars. Tata Motors dipped 0.2%
Hindalco(1.2%) and Vedanta(0.3%) continued their decline on the BSE on the back of their exclusion from the BSE Sensex effective December 21.
Steel companies are under pressure due to low demand and very low prices, which can leave either slender or no margin for producers. Tata Steel , JSWSteel are down by 0.1% each
Pharma stocks are showing weakness in today’s trade with Sun Pharma down over 1% after it made payment of interest on and redemption amount pertaining to 5,000 secured rated redeemable non-convertible debentures (NCD) of the face value of Rs 10 lakh each aggregating to Rs 500 crore.
On the flip side, another drug major Pfizer has moved up by nearly 3% after it announced that the company has struck a deal of $160 billion deal to merger with Allergan, the maker of Botox, in one of the biggest takeovers in the health care industry
From the oil space, as per media reports, ONGC may go ahead with cluster two development of the KG filed. ONGC has however trimmed its gains since morning and is trading at 0.5% gains. RIL has gained 1.3%
Other notable gainers on the Sensex are HUL, HDFC and Bharti Airtel, all up between 0.6-2% each
Gammon India has frozen maximum higher limit of the day, up 20% at Rs 15.49 on the BSE after lenders have decided to take over the management control of infrastructure developer under the strategic debt recast scheme.
