Domestic equity barometers ended with minor cuts; Sensex loses 50 points & Nifty ends at 18,419

After a solid opening in the morning and hitting another record intraday highs, the domestic equity markets snapped the gains and closed lower on Tuesday, October 19, 2021. The S&P BSE Sensex erased all its gains to end 49.54 points, or 0.08 per cent lower, at 61,716.05. The Nifty 50 fell 58.30 points, or 0.32 per cent, to 18,418.75.

The 30-pack index touched an intra-day high, which was its record high of 62,245.43 and intraday low of 61,594.29. Its NSE counterpart, Nifty50, hit an all-time high of 18,604.45 in the morning trade and an intraday low of 18,377.70.

The Nifty Bank declined 144.30 points, or 0.36 per cent, to settle at 39,540.50. In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap fell 1.98 per cent and the BSE SmallCap index ended 1.79 per cent down.

Sellers outnumbered buyers. On the BSE, 985 shares rose and 2380 shares fell. On the Nifty 50 index at the NSE, 16 shares advanced and 34 shares declined. The top five gainers in Nifty were Tech Mahindra (up 4.26 per cent), Larsen & Turbo (up 3.33 per cent), Infosys (up 1.75 per cent), Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 1.61 per cent) and Bajaj Finserv (up 1.38 per cent). The top five losers were ITC (down 6.27 per cent), Tata Motors (down 4.88 per cent), Eicher Motors (down 4.51 per cent), Hindustan Unilever (down 3.64 per cent) and Titan (down 3.58 per cent).

International Markets

Asian shares ended higher with solid gains today, supported by a tech-driven Wall Street rally, and a rebound in Chinese markets. So, Japan's Nikkei-225 index; China's Shanghai Composite index and South Korea's Kospi index rose 0.7 per cent, each; Hong Kong's Hang Seng index climbed 1.5 per cent and Singapore's Straits Times index added 0.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, China's market regulator has said, it would take steps to boost support for private firms and promote fair competition by strengthening supervision. In Europe, London's FTSE-100 had gained 0.1 per cent and DAX had traded marginally higher; but France's CAC-40 had shed marginally, in intra-day trade.

On Wall Street, the S&P and Nasdaq closed higher yesterday with the biggest boosts from the highest-profile technology and communications companies, while investors eyed product news from Apple and sounded optimistic about the third-quarter earnings season.

COVID-19 Update

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide were at 241,115,485 with 4,905,196 deaths. India reported 183,118 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 452,454 deaths, data showed.

Economy

Minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA's) October monetary policy meeting showed the RBA expects the Australian economy to "return to growth in the December quarter and to its pre-Delta path in the second half of 2022." US industrial production declined in September as supply constraints continued to hinder manufacturing. Output fell almost 1.28 per cent to its lowest level since February when it fell 3.02 per cent, data showed.

China's economic recovery stalled in the third quarter of 2021 as the GDP grew by 4.9 per cent down from 7.9 per cent in the second quarter, announced the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). China's economy made an early recovery from the impact of the coronavirus but is now faced with turbulence including a property slump, energy crisis, weak consumer sentiment and soaring raw material costs. It is the weakest pace since China's economy grew by 4.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2020.

State media said, China's economic slowdown in the third quarter not only came amid a lower base effect from last year when the coronavirus pandemic was largely controlled throughout the country but also amid a range of economic challenges that China is facing now, such as the power crunch and supply chain issues. Already, several international financial institutions lowered China's third-quarter GDP growth. The Standard Chartered bank lowered its prediction for China's third-quarter GDP from six per cent to five per cent based on factors including flooding and the lingering effect of regulatory tightening.