MUMBAI: For the second time in 10 years, sensex and Nifty both closed lower during the special hour-long trading session on Diwali which marked the start of Samvat year 2083, one of the Hindu calendars which is followed by the Gujarati trading community who dominate the city's share market.
In Sunday's low-volatility, low-volume trading session, sensex opened higher at 81,299 points, was up nearly 300 points from its Friday close, touched a high of 81,442 points, and then profit-taking at higher levels pulled it down to below the 81K mark. Finally, it settled at 80,999 points, down 29 points on the day. The last time sensex had closed in the red during Muhurat trading was in 2017.
Nifty on NSE also followed a similar trajectory and closed 44 points lower at 24,986 points. For Nifty too, it was the first negative close during the Muhurat session since 2017.
The age-old tradition on Dalal Street is that during the Muhurat trading session on Diwali, domestic investors only buy stocks-even if that order is for one stock-and should never sell. So usually during the Muhurat trading session, leading indices close higher, even if with marginal gains. However, there have been exceptions. And, Sunday's session for the start of Samvat year 2083 was one of those rare ones.
The day's lower close for these indices came after a seven-session rally that added over 10% to take each of the indices to multi-month high levels. The day's modest consolidation appears to reflect natural profit-booking following an exceptional week of gains, said Ponmudi R, CEO of Enrich Money. "Rallies of such magnitude rarely sustain their momentum indefinitely without a period of consolidation, and a single symbolic trading hour was unlikely to buck that pattern."
In Sunday's session, while some of the leading large-cap stocks closed lower, pulling the leading indices lower, midcap and smallcap stocks witnessed buying. As a result, BSE's midcap index closed 0.5% higher while the smallcap index closed 1.5% higher. In turn, the aggregate market capitalisation of all the companies listed on BSE jumped by about Rs 2.6 lakh crore with the current figure at an all-time high of Rs 506 lakh crore, exchange data showed.
The day saw, going by decades-old tradition, families of brokers, traders and other market players going to the exchanges, participating in Lakshmi Puja at the bourse, and some even putting in symbolic trades.
Electronic receipts for silver, platinum soon?
Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD, NSE, said the bourse launched trading in electronic gold receipts (EGRs) on Friday, the day of Dhanteras, traditionally an occasion for buying gold, silver. On the first day itself, over 1.8 lakh EGRs were traded. Chauhan said that in future, similar products could be launched.
