Sensex tanks over 3%, Bank Nifty tumbles 1,650 pts; bloodbath on D-St wipes out Rs 8 lakh cr investor wealth

BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 plunged over 3 per cent on Monday as fear of stricter lockdown to curb the second wave of COVID-19 dented investors’ sentiment. Amid panic selling, the total market cap of BSE-listed companies tumbled by nearly Rs 8 lakh crore to Rs 201 lakh crore at close, from Rs 209 lakh crore in the previous session. BSE Sensex tanked 1,708 points or 3.4 per cent to 47,883, while Nifty 50 index ended at 14,310, down 524 points. Market breadth remained largely in favor of bears. A total of 2,477 socks declined, while just 510 advanced, However, a total of 174 scrips remained unchanged. Index heavyweights such as Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) and Bajaj Finance, among others, contributed the most to indices’ loss on Monday.

Rohit Singre, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities

Strong profit booking has witnessed in today’s session and the index closed a day at 14355 with loss of more than three per cent formed a bearish candle on the daily chart. The index breached most of the good support in today’s session, now 14250 will be immediate and strong support on the downside any break down below said levels we may see more pressure in index & if managed to hold some bounce can be expected, strong hurdle on the higher side coming near 14500-14600 zone one can use that level to lock gains.

Manish Hathiramani, proprietary index trader and technical analyst, Deen Dayal Investments

After resisting at the 14950-15000 level, there has been no respite for the markets. We have witnessed a single slope fall. However, one needs to be cautious at these levels of the index. If we keep below the 14250 level we could fall to 13800-13900 sooner than later. In the short to medium term time frames, this is the last support for the Nifty. If the index has to bottom out, we need to respect the 14250 level and bounce from here.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services

Further implementation of lockdowns and all-time high covid cases have dragged the market to a monthly low. This is expected to impact the economic growth of Q1fy23, more than thought earlier. Implications to the banking & discretionary sector are presumed to be the highest, drifting market to defensives like IT, Pharma and FMCG. This trend may happen for a couple of trading weeks, down a few weeks covid cases are likely to reduce, bringing growth back.

S Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP Securities

The gap down opening on Monday’s trade widened as the day progressed with all sectoral indices in the red as investors worried on the economic fallout on account of the surge in coronavirus cases. Asset quality concerns spooked banks and PSU stocks across sectors were the worst hit amidst lockdown worries.

Ajit Mishra, VP – Research, Religare Broking Ltd

Markets started the week on a feeble note and lost over three and a half percent. The benchmark indices opened a gap down and continue to plunge southwards due to rising COVID-19 cases, vaccine supply issues and the possibility of lockdown in various parts of the country. Selling pressure widened as the day progressed and consequently the Nifty ended lower by 3.5% at 14,310 levels. Markets will first react to TCS results and macroeconomic data viz. IIP and CPI inflation in early trade on Tuesday i.e. April 13. The rising Covid cases combined with the fear of lockdown have pushed the bulls completely on the back foot. We thus suggest maintaining a cautious stance in the near term. On the benchmark front, Nifty has the next critical support at 14,100 levels. In case of a rebound, the 14,500-14,650 zone would act as a hurdle.