Market Wrap, August 22: Indices snap 6-day rally; SENSEX tumbles 694 points, NIFTY50 settles below 24,900; Nifty Bank falls over 1%

The Indian stock market halted its six days of rally and closed lower on Friday, August 22, as banking and metal stocks dragged amid cautious global cues.

Despite Friday's fall, the equity benchmark indices have logged weekly gains, with both the Sensex and NIFTY50 rising 1% each for the second straight week. The Nifty Midcap gauge, however, outperformed, surging over 2% during the week.

Nifty Bank slipped 1.09% to end at the 55,149.40 level, led by a fall in Kotak Mahindra Bank (-1.71%), Punjab National Bank (-1.65%) and AU Small Finance Bank (-1.62%).

According to exchange data, on Thursday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) purchased shares worth ₹1,246.51 crore, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought equities worth ₹2,546.27 crore on a net basis.

Globally, most of the Asian indices edged higher on Friday as investors awaited a speech from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at the annual Jackson Hole symposium.

South Korea's KOSPI gained 0.85%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.74%, and the Shanghai Composite closed 1.43% higher. However, Japan’s Nikkei ended marginally down by 0.03%.

On Wall Street, indices settled with losses on Thursday as investors turned cautious.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 152.81 points, or 0.34%, to end at 44,785.50; the S&P 500 fell 25.61 points, or 0.40%, to close at 6,370.17; and the Nasdaq Composite declined 72.54 points, or 0.34%, to settle at 21,100.31.

As many as 3,050 stocks traded on the NSE on Friday. Out of this, 1,762 declined and 1,178 stocks advanced, while 110 scrips remained unchanged.

This indicated that the market breadth was in favour of bears.

A total of 74 stocks hit their 52-week highs, while 26 stocks touched their one-year lows. Besides, 83 stocks hit their upper circuit limits, and 40 touched their lower circuit bands on Friday.

NSE-listed firms' market capitalisation stood at ₹450.23 lakh crore at the end of the session.

India VIX, the volatility gauge, stood at 11.73 levels, rising 3.12%.

The broader market also closed lower, with the Nifty Smallcap 100 index falling 0.26% to end at 17,919.50 levels, while the Nifty Midcap 100 index closed at the 57,629.75 level, declining 0.14%.

Nifty Metal took the lead among losers, falling 1.25%, followed by Nifty PSU Bank (-1.12%), Nifty Private Bank (-1.06%), Nifty FMCG (-1%) and Nifty Realty (-0.84%).

Nifty Media (0.95%), Nifty Pharma (0.39%) and Nifty Consumer Durables (0.11%) were the only gainers among sectors.

On the NIFTY50 index, 48 stocks declined on Friday, while only 8 advanced at the end of the session.

Grasim Industries was the biggest laggard, declining 2.55% on the 50-share index. Asian Paints (-2.4%), Adani Enterprises (-2.28%), UltraTech Cement (-2.06%) and Hero MotoCorp (-2.06%) were the other top losers.

On the contrary, Mahindra & Mahindra (0.74%), Maruti Suzuki (0.63%), Bharat Electronics (0.25%), Bharti Airtel (0.16%) and Titan (0.07%) were among the top gainers.