Markets closed flat; Sensex gains 145 points & Nifty ends at 18125

Indian equity indices snapped their four-day losing streak in a volatile trading session and closed almost flat on Monday, October 25, 2021. The S&P BSE Sensex gained 145.43 points, or 0.24 per cent to close at 60,967.05. The Nifty 50 index rose 10.50 points or 0.06 per cent at 18,125.40. The Nifty Bank added 868.75 points or 2.15 per cent to end at a fresh high of 41,192.40.

The broader markets underperformed the Sensex at the BSE with S&P BSE MidCap declined 1.65 per cent while S&P BSE SmallCap lost 1.76 per cent.

Sellers outnumbered buyers. On the BSE, 1043 shares rose and 2,312 shares fell. On the Nifty 50 index at the NSE, 11 shares advanced and 39 shares declined. The top five gainers on Nifty 50 were ICICI Bank (up 11.52 per cent), Axis Bank (up 3.47 per cent), ONGC (up 2.71 per cent), Tech Mahindra (up 0.89 per cent) and JSW Steel (up 0.85 per cent). The top five losers were BPCL (down 3.32 per cent), Bajaj Finserv (down 3.26 per cent), SBI Life (down 2.93 per cent), Bajaj Auto (down 2.63 per cent) and Tata Motors (down 2.46 per cent).

International Markets

Asian markets traded mixed today ahead of a week packed with major quarterly earnings announcements. So, Japan's Nikkei-225 index fell 0.7 per cent; Singapore's Straits Times index shed 0.1 per cent. But China's Shanghai Composite index climbed 0.8 per cent and South Korea's Kospi index ended 0.5 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index ended marginally higher.

In Europe, London's FTSE-100 had risen 0.5 per cent and Germany's DAX had gained 0.3 per cent, but France's CAC-40 had shed 0.1 per cent, in intra-day trade.

Economy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today launched PM Ayushman Bharat Infrastructure Mission from Varanasi with a total outlay of Rs 64,180 crore.

Addressing a public meeting at Mehandiganj in Varanasi after launching the scheme nationwide the Prime Minister said PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission aims to strengthen the critical healthcare network from village to block to the district to the regional and national level in the next four-five years. Mr Modi said under this Mission his government will develop the network of treatment and critical care units in every nook and corner of the country with an aggressive approach.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the US central bank was "on track" to begin reducing its purchases of assets. Meanwhile, IHS Markit's survey of senior business executives in service-oriented companies rebounded to a three-month high of 58.2 from 54.9 in September. A similar survey of manufacturers slipped to 59.2 from 60.7.

China's economy risks slowing faster than global investors realize as President Xi Jinping's push to cut its reliance on real estate and regulate sectors from education to technology combine with a power shortage and the pandemic.

Leading American banks are among those sounding the warning that expansion will fall short this year of the 8.2 per cent anticipated by the consensus of economists. The slump could last into next year, forcing growth below 5 per cent, they warn. Outside the 2020s 2.3 per cent, would be the weakest in three decades.

Strategists at Bank of America muse that Chinese President Xi Jinping may even be embracing a once-in-two decades restructuring of the economy akin to Deng Xiaoping's modernisations of the late-1970s and Zhu Rongji's revamping of state enterprises and finance in the 1990s. If so, the data flow from China could confound even the pessimists, and we are on guard for that scenario unfolding, the strategists said in a report last week, in which they predicted growth of 7.7 per cent this year and 4 per cent in 2022.