Market wrap, Nov 8: Sensex sheds 330 pts on Moody's India outlook downgrade

Headlines of the day:

>> Sensex slides 330 pts as Moody's cuts India's ratings to 'negative'; 

>> Moody's rating action unjustified, say experts; demand aggressive rate cut by RBI; 

>> Mahindra and Mahindra Q2 net profit drops 27% on sales drop; &

>> Allahabad Bank's net loss widens in Q2 to Rs 2,114 cr

After showing resilience in the early hours of the trade, stock market came under heavy selling pressure in the last hour of the session on Friday after global rating agency Moody's lowered India's outlook to 'negative' from stable. Further, reports that the rating agency has also revised outlook of IT majors Infosys and TCS along with six financial companies such as Exim India, HDFC Bank, Hero FinCorp, HUDCO and SBI to negative, too, spooked market participants.

The S&P BSE Sensex lost 330 points or 0.81 per cent to settle at 40,324. During the day, the index hit a fresh lifetime high of 40,749.33. YES Bank (up nearly 4 per cent) emerged as the top gainer on the index while Sun Pharma (down over 4 per cent) was the biggest loser. TCS, Infosys, Reliance Industries (RIL), ITC, and Hindustan Unilever (HUL) were the top contributors to the index's fall. Of 30 constituents, 24 ended in the red and just 6 in the green. 

Market breadth remained in favour of declines as of 2,697 companies traded on the BSE, 1,472 declined and 1,047 advanced while 178 remained unchanged. 

On the NSE, the Nifty50 slipped below 12,000-mark to end at 11,908, down 104 points or 0.86 per cent. The index hit a high of 12,034.15 during the day.

On a weekly basis, Sensex gained 0.39 per cent while Nifty added 0.14 per cent. 

Volatility index India VIX spiked over 4 per cent to 15.86 levels. 

In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap index lost 117 points or 0.79 per cent to end at 14,731 and the S&P BSE SmallCap closed 71 points or 0.53 per cent lower at 13,475 levels.

Sectorally, barring realty and private banks, all the sectoral indices on the NSE ended in the red. Pharma stocks saw the steepest fall, followed by PSU banks and FMCG stocks. The Nifty Pharma index slipped over 2 per cent to 7,787.40 levels while Nifty PSU Bank index ended at 2,437, down neary 2 per cent. On the other hand, Nifty Realty ended 1.66 per cent higher at 281 levels. Nifty Private Bank index gained 0.70 per cent to settle at 16,996.

 

Buzzing stocks:

Shares of DLF surged 6 per cent to Rs 204 on the BSE after the company reported a strong set of numbers for the quarter ended September 2019 (Q2FY20). Additionally, stock of the real estate developer was also included in the MSCI Global Standard Index with effect from November 26, 2019. The stock ended at Rs 203.20, up 5.59 per cent.

Shares of Raymond soared 20 per cent to Rs 808 on the BSE after the company announced its plan to demerge its core Lifestyle business and list it as a separate entity. Furthermore, the company announced to use the entire net proceeds from sale of land parcel by JKIT (its Associate Company) for deleveraging of its Balance Sheet. 

Shares of GAIL slipped nearly 4 per cent to Rs 127 on the BSE after the company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,167.58 crore, down 34.7 per cent year-on-year (YoY) for September quarter of FY19. The company had posted net profit of Rs 1,788.98 crore in the year-ago period.