Profit-booking, options expiry slam stocks after rally

Indian benchmark stock indices took a U-turn on Tuesday after a sharp run-up the previous day on the back of easing India-Pakistan tensions and a temporary truce in the US-China trade war.

- Srushti Vaidya

Indian benchmark stock indices took a U-turn on Tuesday after a sharp run-up the previous day on the back of easing India-Pakistan tensions and a temporary truce in the US-China trade war. The bout of profit-taking, which market experts said was on expected lines, coincided with the weekly expiry of Sensex option contracts that expire every Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the BSE Sensex closed 1.55% or 1,282 points down at 81,148.22, while the Nifty 50 index closed 1.39% or 346 points down at 24,578.35. The Nifty 50 lost around 37% of the gains it made on Monday, and the Sensex, 41%. The BSE's market capitalization fell by ₹1.2 trillion to touch ₹431.27 trillion, per data from the exchange.

Looking ahead, the outlook based on options data on Nifty, whose weekly options expire on Thursday, hints at a range of 24,320-24,900 over the next two days with an immediate bias to the downside, said Rajesh Palviya, head of technical research at Axis Securities.

"After the previous day's rally, there was a slight pullback, possibly reflecting investors' exuberance in yesterday's move," said Alok Agarwal, head of quant and fund manager at Alchemy Capital Management. "It appears to be a normalization after yesterday's big move."