Market Watch: Market Watch: Near-term outlook for headline indices ahead of RBI rate hike | The Economic Times Podcast

Welcome to ETMarkets Watch, the show about stocks, market trends and money-making ideas. I am Bhaskar Dutta and here are the top headlines at this hour.

-Adani to invest Rs 70,000 crore in UP
-France woos Indian companies for investment
-White-collar hiring activity up 40% YoY in May
-India May services growth at 11-year high
-Indian mills waiting to export 1.5 MT of sugar
-Workers at Ford’s Chennai plant go on strike

Let’s take a quick glance at what happened on Dalal Street today.

Domestic equity markets surrendered all gains as selling pressure in the last hour of trade dragged headline indexes lower.

Markets wrapped up a volatile week on a bearish note as investors worried about an aggressive rate hike by the RBI in its policy statement next week.

Speculation of hefty rate increases later in the month by the US Fed too stoked worries about tighter financial conditions the world over.

The benchmark indices opened higher after weak US employment data raised the possibility of the Fed turning less aggressive but erased 600-points from the day’s high and succumbed to fag-end selling.

The 30-share pack Sensex declined by 48.88 points or 0.09 per cent to end the session at 55,769.23. Its broader peer, Nifty50, settled 43.70 points or 0.26 per cent but managed to hold the 16,550 mark. Even though the benchmarks declined for 3 out of five sessions, they have managed to notch up weekly gains for the third time running.

Broader markets fared much worse than their headline peers, with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indexes shedding 1.5 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively. Fear gauge India VIX fell 1.7 per cent to end at 19.98.

18 of the 30 stocks on the BSE Sensex ended in the red, with Ultratech losing 5.5 per cent. Maruti and NTPC lost more than 2.5 per cent each, while Axis Bank and Bajaj Finserv gave up more than 2 per cent each.

Reliance led the gainers, rising 2 per cent, followed by Infosys and L&T, which both gained 0.9 per cent each.
7 stocks hit upper circuits while2 tested their lower circuit limits during the day. 19 stocks tested their 52-week highs during the session, whereas 33 tested their 52-week lows.

We have Vinod Nair from Geojit Financial Services to share his views on the day’s action and the road ahead:

Welcome to the show sir:
1. The IT sector has been outperforming over the last couple of days, even as frontline stocks were recently downgraded by analysts. What is your outlook on the sector?
2. What is the near-term outlook for headline indexes, given that both RBI and Fed are likely to hike rates?

We also caught up with Vaishali Parekh of Prabhudas Lilladher to decode the technical charts for you.
1. The Nifty50 erased gains and settled below the 16,600 level. What do the technical charts suggest about it?
2. Bank Nifty has been faring worse than the headline index for the last couple of days. What is your outlook on the sector?

Asian stocks mostly settled with gains for the day. European markets were mostly trading higher. Meanwhile, US stock futures were down, signalling a weak start to US equities later in the day.

That’s all for now. Do check out ETMarkets.com for all the news, market analysis, investment strategies and dozens of stock recommendations. Enjoy your evening. Bye Bye!