BFSI and IT halt 7-day bull run; banks and financials remain market’s best turnaround bets —here’s why
On Wednesday, the BSE Bankex index closed 1% lower, having rallied 7.7% in the previous seven sessions. Meanwhile, the BSE Information Technology index also dropped by over 1% in the last session, following a 4.7% surge between March 17 and 25.
Circuit breaker: What happened?
Profit booking was widespread across D-Street on Wednesday, as investors booked profits ahead of the monthly expiry. Moreover, Trump’s tariffs will kick in from April 2, the full details of which are not yet known, and global markets could remain wobbly.
Devarsh Vakil, Head of Prime Research at HDFC Securities, said that profit-taking halted the week-long rally. «The market's momentum stalled as traders digested recent gains and assessed geopolitical uncertainties,» he said.
Another major reason for the market fall was the beginning of US-India trade negotiations on Wednesday. Motilal Oswal Financial Services' (MOFSL) Siddhartha Khemka, Head — Research, Wealth Management, mentioned that the markets could continue to be nervous until the conclusion of the negotiations on Saturday.
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However, brokerage firm Kotak Institutional Equities sees a deeper problem. It does not find value in “most parts of the markets,” stating that future earnings have seen downgrades in the past fortnight.
The recent surge led by BFSI and narrative stocks was viewed as a “barbell” rally by Kotak, where both fundamentals and sentiments were simultaneously at play.
In stock market parlance, a barbell rally refers to a temporary, often short-lived surge