Selling pressure seen in the markets; Sensex declines 433 points & Nifty settles at 17,874

The domestic benchmark indices ended the volatile trading session on a weaker note on Thursday, November 11, 2021. The stock markets which opened in the negative today has dropped for the third consecutive session amid the profit booking.

The S&P BSE Sensex declined 433.13 points, or 0.72 per cent, to 59,919.67. The Nifty 50 index lost 143.60 points, or 0.8o per cent, to close at 17,873.60. In the intraday trade, the Sensex and Nifty 50 touched lows of 59,656.26 and 17,798.20, respectively. In the sectoral indices at NSE, all the segments closed in red except Nifty Metal and Nifty Consumer Durables indexes. The Nifty Bank lost 453.05 points, or 1.19 per cent, to 38,560.20.

In the broader markets, the S&P BSE MidCap and BSE SmallCap fell 0.64 per cent and 0.54 per cent respectively. All the indexes on BSE also closed in the negative zone.

Sellers outnumbered buyers. On the BSE, 1,443 shares rose and 1,849 shares fell. On the Nifty 50 index at the NSE, eight shares advanced, 41 shares declined and one remained unchanged. The top five gainers on Nifty were Titan (up 1.69 per cent), Hindalco (up 1.09 per cent), JSW Steel (up 0.63 per cent), TCS (up 0.59 per cent) and M&M (up 0.55 per cent). The top five losers were SBI (down 2.77 per cent), ONGC (down 2.57 per cent), SBI Life (down 2.50 per cent), Bajaj Finserv (down 2.45 per cent) and Tech Mahindra (down 2.40 per cent).

IPO Update

Sapphire Foods IPO: The initial public offering (IPO) of Sapphire Foods India Limited, a franchise operator of KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants, was subscribed 6.62 times by 5 pm at the BSE on Thursday, the third and the last day for bidding.

The Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) portion was subscribed 7.50 times, while the Non-Institutional Investors (NIIs) and Retail Individual Investors (RIIs) were subscribed 3.46 times and 8.70 times, respectively. Sapphire Foods had fixed the price band of the issue at Rs 1,120-1,180 per share as it had plans to raise up to Rs 2,073.25 crore through the issue.

Latent View Analytics Limited IPO: The initial public offering (IPO) of the data analytics company Latent View was subscribed 23.22 times by 5 pm at BSE on Thursday, the second day for bidding. The Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIBs) portion was subscribed 3.51 times, while the Non-Institutional Investors (NIIs) and Retail Individual Investors (RIIs) were subscribed 33.29 times and 69.56 times, respectively. The portion reserved for employees was subscribed 2.61 times by the end of the first day of the opening of the issue.

The company has fixed the price band at Rs 190-197 per share as it seeks to raise Rs 600 crore from the initial share sale. The issue will come to a close on Friday, November 12, 2021. The bid lot size for the retail investors is 76 equity shares and in multiples thereafter, maximum up to 2 lakhs. The company is offering a discount of Rs 19 per equity share for the eligible employees and the maximum subscription amount for eligible employees is Rs 5 lakhs. The public issue comprises a fresh issue of up to Rs 474 crore and an Offer for Sale of up to Rs 126 crore.

Alarm on Cryptocurrencies

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das sounded alarm on cryptocurrencies, cautioning investors on the potential pitfalls of digital currency. He said Cryptocurrencies are a very serious concern from a macroeconomic and financial stability point of view.

Shaktikanta Das's comments come at a time when the craze for cryptocurrencies is growing among Indian investors, especially the retail ones. The craze for cryptocurrencies in India has grown after Supreme Court overturned the RBI order, which effectively lifted the ban on cryptocurrency trading in India.

The central government is yet to enact a law on cryptocurrencies. It is in consultation with industry experts and other stakeholders over the issue.

Economy

Prices for US consumer's inflation jumped 6.2 per cent in October compared with a year earlier as surging costs for food, gas and housing left Americans grappling with the highest inflation rate since 1990. The year-over-year increase in the consumer price index exceeded the 5.4 per cent rise in September, the Labour Department reported on Wednesday.

The European Central Bank could stop buying bonds as early as next September if inflation looks to have sustainably returned to the official target, Governing Council member Robert Holzmann said. Introduced in 2015, the bank's asset purchase programme (APP) was designed to get consumer-price growth back to 2 per cent, according to Holzmann, who heads Austria's central bank. "So the elimination of the condition and therefore the end of the programme could -- depending on the inflation development -- happen in September or at the end of the year," he said on Wednesday in London. ECB officials are five weeks away from a meeting to lay out their post-pandemic policy path. While President Christine Lagarde has signalled pandemic asset purchases will end as planned in March, there is no consensus on what will happen to the bank's conventional bond-buying plan -- currently running at 20 billion euros ($23.1 billion) a month.