SENSEX, NIFTY50 snap two-day winning streak dragged down by financial services shares

The Indian equity benchmarks snapped their two-day winning run on Friday, August 7, as sentiment turned cautious tracking a spike in crude prices in global markets. The SENSEX fell as much as 578 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday low of 24,522 dragged down by losses in index heavyweights like ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank Bajaj Finserv and Axis Bank.

The SENSEX ended 456 points lower at 78,499.17 and NIFTY50 index declined 65 points to close at 24,570.65.

Brent crude futures surged over $80 per barrel as investors turned cautious on uncertainty over supply of crude oil from the Strait of Hormuz.

Back home, seven of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended lower led by the NIFTY Financial Services index's 1.5% fall. NIFTY Bank, Financial Services 25/50, Private Bank and Consumer Durables indices also fell between 07% and 1.4%.

On the other hand, auto, IT, metal and PSU banking shares witnessed buying interest.

Broader markets ended mixed as NIFTY Midcap 100 index advanced 0.22% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index fell 0.05%.

Among the individual shares, Siemens Energy jumped as much as 14.84%, its biggest single day move on record, to hit an intraday high of ₹3,735 after the company said that its net profit in April-June period jumped 68% to ₹441 crore from ₹263 crore in the same period last year.

Its revenue from operations advanced 39% to ₹2,486 crore from ₹1,785 crore in the year-ago period.

"Revenue witnessed solid growth primarily supported by robust order backlog and execution. Profit from operations (%) also improved by 430 bps year-on-year to 21.9%, primarily driven by better operating leverage, higher export contributions, and disciplined order execution," Siemens Energy said in a press release.

The company reported strong operational performance as its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) jumped 72% to ₹585 crore and its EBITDA margin improved by 4.4 percentage points to 23.55%.

Bajaj Finance was top loser in the NIFTY50 index, the stock fell 5.84% to close at ₹1,078 after reports suggested Reserve Bank of India issued draft guidelines which prohibit non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) from offering a revolving credit facilities.

Bajaj Finserv, Trent, ICICI Bank, Jio Financial Services, Shriram Finance, Titan, Axis Bank, and Tata Steel also fell between 0.9% and 3.7%.

On the flip side, Grasim, TCS, Hindalco, Mahindra & Mahindra, HCL Technologies, State Bank of India, Infosys and Hindustan Unilever were top gainers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was neutral as 1,685 shares ended higher while 1,664 closed lower on the NSE.