Market Movers: RIL crumbles, pharma stocks rally; 30 stocks turn overbought

NEW DELHI: A rapid spread of Covid-19 cases and rising worries over economic recovery provided ammunition to the bears to push the blue chip indices deeper into the red on Wednesday. This was the third time in four sessions that the market closed in the red.

BSE flagship Sensex dropped over 400 points while its peer Nifty shed some 100 points as a selloff in Reliance Industries and HDFC Bank proved to be the biggest drags. Pharma names were in huge demand during the session.

“After an initial uptick, the benchmark inched gradually lower as participants preferred to book some profit ahead of the expiry of monthly F&O contracts. Besides, the existence of a critical hurdle around the 11,350 level added to the pressure on Nifty,” said Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking.

Here is a lowdown on what happened in Wednesday's session:
RIL top Nifty loser
Shares of Reliance Industries crumbled under pressure and a profit booking ensued ahead of its June quarter earnings on Thursday. The stock fell to Rs 2,095, down 3.75 per cent from the previous close.

IndusInd jumps on fund raising
Shares of IndusInd Bank gained 4.54 per cent to Rs 550.80 and was the biggest gainer among Sensex stocks as the company said it would raise Rs 3,288 crore by selling shares through a preferential issue.

Pharma stocks rally
Street-beating earnings performance by Dr Reddy’s Labs lifted the stock 6.28 per cent to Rs 4,305.70. Its peers also rallied with it, with the likes of Torrent Pharma, Alkem Labs, Divi’s Labs and Cipla rising up to 5 per cent, taking Nifty Pharma 3.09 per cent higher.

Insider trading: Radhe Dev, Sacheta Metals
Promoters Radhe Developers continued their stock buying spree, adding further 1,840 shares, following which the stock jumped 3.80 per cent to Rs 10.38. Similarly, promoters of Sacheta Metals bought 6,800 shares of the company taking the stock up 0.67 per cent to Rs 15.

Stocks at 52-week highs
Over 100 stocks hit their 52-week highs on BSE. They included Birlasoft, Deepak Nitrate, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Garware Technical Fibres, Infibeam Avenues, Jubilant Life Sciences, Laurus Labs, MCX, Mindtree and TCS, among others.

Stocks that gave ‘buy’ signals
Over 40 stocks flashed ‘buy’ signals on BSE as prices crossed above the signal line on MACD indicator. They included NMDC, Tata Coffee, PTC India, Shriram Transport Finance, Cipla, Srides Pharma, Prestige Estates and Tata Chemicals, among others.

Stocks that turned ‘overbought’
Over 30 stocks turned overbought as they crossed above the 70-mark on RSI indicator. They included Tata Coffee, Edelweiss Financial, Firstsource Solution, IRB Infra, Ramco Systems, Jubilant Life Sciences and UltraTech Cements, among others.

Where is Nifty headed?
Though Nifty failed to continue the up-move on Wednesday, the underlying uptrend remained intact. As long as it lower support at 11,150-11,100 levels holds, there is a possibility of further upside in the market in the short term. At the same time, the upper levels of the 11,350-11,400 range can act as a key overhead resistance in the near term, said Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research Analyst, HDFC Securities. “There is a possibility of an upside bounce and Nifty retesting the overhead resistance at 11,350 over the next few sessions. On the downside, the 11,100-11,060 zone is likely to offer strong support to the index going forward,” he said.