Market Wrap, September 30: Here's all that happened in the markets today

The benchmark indices suffered sharp losses for the third day in a row defying firm global cues. The Nifty50 index ended at 17,618, down 93 points. The BSE Sensex, meanwhile, ended with a loss of 286 points at 59,126. The volatility remained high on account of monthly F&O expiry.

Power Grid Corp, Axis Bank, Asian Paints, Eicher Motors and Hero MotoCorp were among the major losers on the Nifty. Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Sun Pharma, NTPC and Tata Motors were among the gainers.

The BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices, however, closed higher, up 0.3 per cent and 0.6 per cent, respectively. The market breadth was in favour of advances as about 1,804 shares have advanced, and 1,393 shares declined.

On the sectoral front it was a mixed trend, with buying seen in the realty, pharma, power and PSU banking stocks. Selling was seen in the auto, bank, IT, metal names. The volatility index, India VIX, eased 2.3% to close at the 18.40 level.

Coming to stock-specific moves, the shares of JMC Projects rallied 12% today after the company secured new orders of Rs 1,849 Crores. Faze Three Autofab too jumped 14% in a weak market. According to BSE bulk deals data, ace investor Ashish Rameshchandra Kacholia bought 450,000 shares at an average price of Rs 288.80 in trades on the BSE on Wednesday.

That said, Bharti Airtel's shares failed to hold opening gains, ending nearly 1 per cent lower after the company said it will invest Rs 5,000 crores to scale up its data centre business. Meanwhile, the stock of Zee Entertainment was also in focus today owing to the Zee-Invesco case. Invesco dragged ZEE to NCLT seeking EGM for board reconstitution. The stock closed with a loss of nearly 2 per cent.

Now, in the primary market, the initial public offer by Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC is nearly fully subscribed on day two of bidding. So far, the shares on offer have been subscribed 0.98 times. The IPO will remain open till Friday.

Global Health Limited, which operates and manages hospitals under the Medanta brand, has also filed preliminary papers with capital market regulator Sebi to raise funds through an initial share-sale.

All eyes will be on the core sector data due today. Further, going into trade on Friday, the markets will focus on the auto space as the companies are due to detail their sales data for September tomorrow. The technical indicator suggests, a volatile movement in the market in a small range between 17600-18000.

Meanwhile, Paras Defence and Space Technologies is all set to make a market debut on October 1. The three-day Paras Defence IPO, which was launched between September 21-23 had been subscribed by over 304 times, amid strong demand from non-institutional investors.

Lastly, stock-specific moves, global cues as well as news related to Covid-19 will be among other major triggers for investors.

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