Markets snap three-day winning run; Sensex declines 125 points & Nifty settles at 17,585

Domestic equity indices snapped their three-day winning streak and ended with small losses on Friday, September 17, 2021, amid losses in heavyweight Reliance Industries, IT Stocks and select banking stocks.

The Barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex fell 125.27 points or 0.21 per cent to end at 59,015.89. Nifty 50 index was down 44.35 points or 0.25 per cent at 17,585.15. The Sensex hit a record high of 59,737.32 while the Nifty hit an all-time high of 17,792.95 in the intraday deals today.

However, the Nifty Bank index gained 143.35 points or 0.38 per cent to close at 37,811.95. The broader markets underperformed Sensex with the S&P BSE MidCap index sinking 1.14 per cent and S&P BSE SmallCap losing 1.06 per cent.

The market breadth was weak today. On the BSE, 1,231 shares rose and 2,065 shares fell. On the Nifty 50 index on NSE, 15 shares rose while 34 fell and one remain unchanged. The top five gainers on Nifty were Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 5.63 per cent), HDFC Bank (up 1.64 per cent), Bharti Airtel (up 1.52 per cent), Eicher Motors (up 1.39 per cent) and Maruti (up 1.21 per cent). The top five losers were Tata Steel (down 3.76 per cent), Coal India (down 3.45 per cent), State Bank of India (down 2.25 per cent), TCS (down 1.97 per cent) and Hindalco (down 1.97 per cent).

COVID-19 update

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide were at 22,70,26,185 with 46,69,992 deaths. India reported 3,39,056 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 4,44,248 deaths while 3,25,98,424 patients have been discharged, data showed.

Economy

The 45th Meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is going on in Lucknow today. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is chairing the meeting in which Finance Ministers from all states and many senior officers are present. The council will announce its decisions in the evening.

This is the first time when any GST Council Meeting is taking place in the state capital Lucknow. This is also the first physical meet of the GST Council following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic. This is the 45th Meeting of the GST Council and in the last 44 meetings Council had taken many decisions which helped common people. At its last meeting in June, the Council had waived the indirect tax levied on two critical drugs and reset the tax rate to five per cent on many COVID-19 essentials. It also continued the tax rates of five per cent for COVID vaccines.

The Council, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, is expected to continue the pro-people decisions in its meet today. The consensus amongst members has been the guiding principle for making decisions in the GST Council which reflects the accommodative spirit of cooperative federalism.

UK retail sales fell unexpectedly in August 2021, dropping 0.9 per cent month-on-month (MoM). The fourth consecutive monthly decline marks the longest negative streak since records began. US retail sales increased in August, rising 0.7 per cent from the previous month. The initial estimate for July, however, was revised down to a decline of nearly 2 per cent from a month-over-month gain of 0.5 per cent. The latest unemployment insurance weekly data showed 3,32,000 first-time jobless claims last week.

Kristalina Georgieva risks seeing her authority as head of the International Monetary Fund undermined just weeks before an annual meeting of global finance chiefs, after being accused of influencing a report in China's favour when she worked at the World Bank. Ms Georgieva on Thursday said that she fundamentally disagreed with the finding -- by an outside law firm engaged by the World Bank -- that she had applied pressure on the bank's staff to boost China's ranking in an economic report.

She informed the IMF board of the allegations on Thursday and will be addressing the fund's staff Friday, according to people familiar with the matter. The substance of the charge was the latest in a series of scandals that have plagued the troubled report in recent years.