After opening the day on a strong note, Indian share markets witnessed selling pressure during closing hours today and ended marginally lower.
Benchmark indices opened on a positive note tracking gains in Asian peers as the resumption of vaccine trial by AstraZeneca boosted hopes of an early end to the pandemic and lifted investor sentiments.
Gains were erased in the afternoon session, amid selling in banking, telecom and FMCG companies.
At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 98 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty ended down by 24 points.
HCL Tech and TCS were among the top gainers today. Bharti Airtel, on the other hand, was among the top losers today.
SGX Nifty was trading at 11,431, down by 36 points, at the time of writing.
Broader indices outperformed their benchmark peers after the market regulator tweaked rules for multi-cap mutual funds.
According to the new norms, multi-cap funds must hold at least 75% of their assets in equities with 25% each in large, medium and smaller companies.
The BSE Mid Cap index ended up by 1.6%. The BSE Small Cap index ended up by 4%.
Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the telecom sector and banking sector witnessing selling pressure.
IT stocks, on the other hand, witnessed a huge buying interest.
Asian stock markets ended on a positive note. As of the most recent closing prices, the Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended higher by 0.6%. The Nikkei ended up by 0.7%.
US stock futures are trading higher today, indicating a positive start for Wall Street indices.
Nasdaq Futures are trading up by 161 points (up 1.5%), while Dow Jones Industrial Average Futures are trading up by 285 points (up 1%).
The rupee is trading at 73.53 against the US$.
Gold prices are trading up by 0.2% at Rs 51,402 per 10 grams.
Moving on to stock-specific news...
HCL Technologies was among the top buzzing stocks today.
Shares of the company rallied 11% to hit a record high of Rs 807.80 on the BSE after the company said it expects the revenue and the operating margin for the July-September quarter (Q2FY21) to be meaningfully better than the top end of the guidance it had provided in July'2020.
"We have seen strong execution during the quarter to date, and continue to execute to the plan this month. The Revenue growth for the current quarter is expected to exceed 3.5% quarter on quarter in constant currency (CC), enabled by broad-based momentum across all service lines, verticals and geographies," the company said in a mid-quarter business update.
The IT major further said the earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) margin for the current quarter is expected to be between 20.5% and 21%.
For the April-June quarter of the fiscal year 2020-21, HCL Technologies had recorded a 31.7% increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 29.3 billion.
HCL Technologies' share price ended the day up by 10%.
In other news, the market-capitalization of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) surged past the Rs 9 trillion marks for the first time, after its share price rose 5% to hit a record high of Rs 2,504.
The IT giant is the second Indian company, after Reliance Industries, to achieve the milestone.
Shares of other IT companies also witnessed buying interest today with Persistent Systems, Mphasis, NIIT, Mastek, Ramco Systems, and Quick Heal Technologies from the S&P BSE IT index rising in the range of 5-11%.
Moving on to news from the automobile sector, as per a leading financial daily, Tata Motors has initiated the process of selling stakes in units Tata Technologies and Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. as part of its ambitious plan to turn debt-free in three years.
The intent is to monetize non-core assets and the exercise has begun with these two companies.
In other news, the company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Jaguar Land Rover (UK) said retail sales totaled 36,421 in July and 28,887 vehicles in the seasonally lower month of August.
Notably, UK retail sales in July and August were up significantly year-on-year (YoY), 29.1%, and 14.3% respectively.
Tata Motors' share price ended the day up by 2.1%.
Speaking of the automobile sector, have a look at the chart below which shows the performance of the BSE Auto index for the month of September since inception.
The BSE auto index ended in the red on only 3 out of the last 15 years for the month of September. That's a success ratio of 80%.
The auto index has entered the greed phase in September 2019 and will stay there until December 2021. This means there is still a lot of fuel left for auto stocks.
How automobile stocks perform in the coming months remains to be seen. Stay tuned for more updates from this space.
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