D-Street Weekly Wrap: Nifty declines 1.65% amid sell-off; Bharti Airtel gains 5%

Over the holiday-shortened week, Indian benchmark indices saw heavy sell-offs, but in today’s trade, heavyweights aided in some recovery. Shrugging off rising geo-political tensions and hawkish Fed comments, Nifty added 0.7 per cent and settled at 22,147, while Sensex added 0.83 per cent and closed at 73,088.33 levels. Meanwhile, the Bank Nifty logged stupendous gains of over 1 per cent, while broader markets saw a correction.

So in the week to April 19, Nifty tumbled as much as 1.65 per cent, while Sensex slipped 1.56 per cent.

Major events of importance that impacted stock markets:

Rising geopolitical rift between Iran and Iraq:

Over the previous weekend, while Iran-Iraq tensions came to the fore, the situation took its worst stride. According to a Reuters report today, Israeli missiles, as a retaliatory action, targeted a site in Iran after Israeli attacks on Iran’s embassy in Syria.

US Fed’s hawkish comments:

Risk-off sentiment took over globally amid hawkish comments from the US Fed. “The Fed commentary, hinting at reduced rate cut expectations, weighed on investor sentiment. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari advocated patience, suggesting policy adjustments might not occur until 2025,” Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities, said.

Rising bond yield:

The US 10-year bond yield also saw a sharp spike and last traded at 4.584 per cent, down significantly by over 1 per cent. The move led to significant selling by FIIs to the tune of Rs 4260 crore in the previous day’s trade.

Top Nifty gainers 

Stock            Weekly performance 

Bharti Airtel                      4.9%

Hindalco Industries:        1.9%

ONGC                             1.2%

Eicher Motors                  0.7%

Mahindra & Mahindra     0.3%

Sectoral gainers and losers

On the sectoral front, all the Nifty indices emerged as losers barring Nifty Media, with IT, banking, and financial services indices leading the losers list with a drag of up to 4 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively. Other notable losers feeling the heat amid weak global cues have been the healthcare, consumer durables, and FMCG indices.

“The market action was predominantly negative this week as the indices made a lower low on three out of four days. The second half of this week was pretty volatile, and at the same time, fresh buying emerged towards the latter part of the week, where the bulls took control of the markets,” said Tejas Shah, Technical Research, JM Financial & BlinkX.

It was a volatile week after a negative opening, and neither the bulls nor the bears wanted to give up. The index witnessed intra-week volatility of 400 points. The broader markets outperformed as compared to the mainline indices. India VIX witnessed a sharp rally to levels of 13.46 (up by 16.74 per cent - weekly), Shah added.