Rising bond rates and bearish global cues frightened investors, causing Indian market indices to settle a per cent down for the second consecutive day on Wednesday. The benchmark indexes began lower as traders were concerned by private research indicating that the third wave of the COVID-19 epidemic will likely peak in India on January 23.

The Nifty50 has formed another long bear candle on the daily chart, a sign of the continuation of a downtrend, according to Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research Analyst at HDFC Securities.

“The formation of two back-to-back long bear candles indicates a trend reversal in the Nifty after a sustainable up move of the past 22-23 sessions… The index has also started to show weakness on the weekly chart,” he said.

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Indian Indices

Sensex fell 656.04 points or 1.08% to 60,098.82 and Nifty was down by 174.65 points or 0.96% to 17,938.40 in the previous session. Sensex touched high and low of 60,870.17 and 59,949.22, respectively and there were 8 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index while Nifty traded in a range of 18,129.20 and 17,884.90 and there were 15 stocks advancing against 35 stocks declining on the index.

Broader Indices

The broader indices ended mixed with the BSE Midcap index falling 0.34%, while the Small cap index was up by 0.03%. The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were PSU up by 1.22%, Utilities up by 1.01%, Power up by 0.99%, Metal up by 0.89%, Oil & Gas up by 0.71% while, IT down by 1.95%, TECK down by 1.79%, Telecom down by 0.97%, FMCG down by 0.89%, Bankex down by 0.52% were the losing indices on BSE.

Support and Resistance levels

Key support levels for the Nifty are placed at 17,839.13, followed by 17,739.87. If the index moves up, the key resistance levels to watch out for are 18,083.43 and 18,228.46, according to pivot charts.

SGX Nifty

The trends on SGX Nifty indicate a negative opening for the index in India with a 54-points loss. The Nifty futures were trading at 17,891.80 on the Singaporean Exchange around 07:00 hours IST.

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Asian Markets

Asian markets settled mostly lower on Wednesday. The Shanghai Composite fell 0.33%, while the Hang Seng was up 0.05%. The Nikkei 225 fell 790 points 2.80%.

US Markets

The S&P 500 fell 44.35 points, or 1%, to 4,532.76.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 339.82 points, or 1%, to 35,028.65.

The Nasdaq fell 166.64 points, or 1.2%, to 14,340.26.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 33.44 points, or 1.6%, to 2,062.78.

European Markets

European markets finished higher yesterday with shares in France leading the region. The CAC 40 was up 0.55% while London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.35% and Germany’s DAX was up 0.24%.

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Delhi govt sign pact with CESL for installation of EV charging stations

The Delhi government signed an agreement with the CESL on Wednesday for the installation of charging and battery swapping stations for electric two, three and four-wheelers at cluster bus depots of its Transport Department. Each charging and battery swapping facility will be installed at 14 locations. Each will include six charging points, three of which will be for two and three-wheelers while three points will be meant for four-wheelers, he said. Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the Transport department, the Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL) has agreed to procure, install, operate and maintain charging units and related infrastructure at its cost and expense, said a Transport department statement. The charges for usage of location will be paid by CESL to Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) every month at the rate of one rupee per kWh of energy dispensed, it said.

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At the end of September 2021, digital payments had grown at a 40% annual rate, according to RBI data

Digital payments across the country registered a growth of nearly 40 per cent in a year through September 2021, as per the RBI’s latest index that measures the adoption of online transactions. The newly constituted RBI’s digital payment index (RBI-DPI) stood at 304.06 during September 2021 as against 270.59 in March 2021 and 217.74 in September 2020. The RBI-DPI Index continues to demonstrate significant growth in adoption and deepening of digital payments across the country the RBI said in a statement on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank had announced the construction of a composite Reserve Bank of India Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) with March 2018 as a base to capture the extent of digitisation of payments across the country.

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LTI’s net profit increased by 18% to Rs 621.5 crore in the December quarter

LTI, the infotech arm of EPC major Larsen & Toubro, on Wednesday reported an 18 per cent growth in its net profit to Rs 612.5 crore for the December 2021 quarter, on higher revenues. The city-based company’s revenue from operations increased 31.2 per cent to Rs 4,137 crore, and was 9.8 per cent higher than the preceding September 2020 quarter. Indian IT services companies have been reporting a higher pick-up in business during the pandemic, as businesses shift to rely higher on digital interventions to continue. Its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Jalona said clients continue to be focused on higher digitisation in the new year also and exuded confidence about the company continuing on the growth trajectory.

Tata Communications Q3 Results: Revenue is Rs 4,185 crore, while PAT is up 28% year on year

Tata Communications, the telecom arm of salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group, on January 19 reported a revenue of Rs 4,185 crore (US $558.5 million) in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2021-22. On a sequential basis, the numbers grew 0.3 % while on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, there was a decline of 0.9 %. The profit after tax (PAT) came in at Rs 395 crore (US $52.8 million), which was sequentially higher by 7.1 %. On a YoY basis, the net profit soared by 27.8 %. Consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) came in at Rs 1,082.5 crore (US$ 144.5 million), which marked an increase of 3.5 % YoY, “with margins in at 25.9 %, expanding by 110 bps as compared to the same quarter last year”, the company said in a press release. One of the highlights of Tata Communications quarterly performance was the sequential growth in the data business, with revenues for the segment being reported as Rs 3,233 crore. This marked a 3 % QoQ and 3.4 % YoY growth.

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Indian Oil Corp acquires nearly 5% stake in Indian Gas Exchange

Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC) has acquired a 4.93% stake in Indian Gas Exchange (IGX) from the latter’s promoter Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), the company said in a joint statement on January 19. The IEX and National Stock Exchange promoted gas exchange already has other strategic investors such as GAIL (India) Ltd, ONGC Ltd, Torrent Gas Pvt Ltd and Adani Total Gas Ltd. “IndianOil is also committed to that vision and has a presence in the complete value chain of gas marketing; from LNG terminals, pipeline network and Gas retailing through the City Gas Distribution (CGD) network. Our successful bids in the 11th Round of CGD bidding is also in line with our strategy to emerge as a dominant player in the Indian gas market. And given the synergy, our partnership with the Indian Gas Exchange is a step towards attaining our mission of ensuring the availability of gas across the nation at competitive prices,” said Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, chairman, Indian Oil.

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Bulk Deal data

Intellect Stock Broking Limited, Mayank Agrawal, Pawan Gupta, Priti B Choudhary, and Sanjay Agrawal has respectively bought 49,800, 40,200, 30,000, 49,800, and 1,17,000 equity shares in Foce India at Rs 190, Rs 192.76, Rs 200, Rs 200.1 and Rs 190 per share respectively on the NSE. 

Anuradha Rajesh Mehra, Mark Corporate Advisors Pvt Ltd, Rajesh Mehra And Sparc Integrated Solutions LLP have sold 24,600, 1,50,000, 47,400 and 25,200 shares in Foce India at Rs 191.12, Rs 190, Rs 200 and Rs 190 per share respectively on the NSE, the bulk deals data showed. 

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Alpha Leon Enterprises Llp, Bytes And Pixels Finsoft Llp, Hardik M Shah, Pashupati Capita Ser Pvt Ltd, Statsol Research Llp sold 62,000, 22,000, 1,14,000, 32,000, 20,000 shares in Timescan Logistics Ind at Rs 107.5, Rs 107.5, Rs 109.56, Rs 108.29, Rs 107.5 apiece respectively on the NSE. 

Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund Pure Value Fund bought 10,00,000 shares in Pricol Limited at Rs 126.5 per share, while Vramath Financial Services Pvt Ltd sold an equal amount of shares at Rs 127.89 per share on the NSE, the bulk deals data showed.

Okoworld Growing Markets 2.0 bought 4,21,568 shares in HSIL Limited at Rs 300.64 per share, and Vimla K bought 12,518 equity shares in Digjam Ltd at Rs 309.11 per share on the NSE, the bulk deals data showed. 

DII and FII data

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 2,704.77 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) offloaded shares worth a net Rs 195.07 crore in the Indian equity market on January 19, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

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NSE F&O Ban

BHEL, Escorts, Granules India, Indiabulls Housing Finance, Vodafone Idea, and SAIL are under the F&O ban for January 20. Securities in the ban period under the F&O segment include companies in which the security has crossed 95% of the market-wide position limit.