Indian stocks failed to hold strong early gains and ended on a weak note after a somewhat volatile session on Tuesday, as the mood turned cautious amid uncertainty about the effectiveness of Covid-19 shots against the newly detected Omicron variant.
Weakness in European markets and lower U.S. futures weighed on the market in late afternoon trades. Investors also looked ahead to the upcoming data on India’s third-quarter GDP growth, and infrastructure output report for October.
The benchmark BSE Sensex, which soared more than 900 points to 58,283.77 earlier in the day, plunged to a low of 56,867.51 before finally settling at 57,064.87 with a loss of 195.71 points or 0.34%.
The National Stock Exchange’s Nifty50 ended down by 70.75 points or 0.41% at 16,983.20, falling from a high of 17,324.65.
The market turned weak on concerns over Omicron variant following a warning by Moderna CEO that vaccinations may gradually become less effective against the latest variant. The World Health Organization had on Friday termed the Omicron variant a matter of grave concern.
Metal, automobile and bank stocks were among the prominent losers. Consumer durables stocks moved higher. A few stocks from information technology and realty sectors too closed notably higher.
Tata Steel shed about 4%. Kotak Bank, JSW Steel and Adani Ports declined 2.7 to 3%, while Bajaj Auto ended 2.1% down.
IndusInd Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, HeroMotocorp, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries, Coal India, Eicher Motors, Maruti Suzuki, State Bank of India, HDFC and ONGC lost 1 to 2%.
Power Grid Corporation rallied more than 3%. Bajaj Finserv, Titan Industries, Tata Consumer Products, SBI Life, Infosys, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra and Bajaj Finance also posted strong gains.
Go Fashion (India) Limited shares soared nearly 82% on debut to settle at Rs 1,252.60. The Go Fashion counter on BSE clocked a volume of about 1.04 million shares on BSE. On the National Stock Exchange, the counter recorded a volume of nearly 17.55 million shares.
The market breadth was slightly positive. Out of 3402 stocks traded on BSE, 1778 stocks closed higher, 1471 stocks declined and 153 stocks ended flat.
Market Analysis
Sensex, Nifty Slide To Weak Close On Virus Concerns
2021-11-30 11:05:30
