Global coronavirus scares have come to India as well, with fresh cases being reported all across the country including 15 recently reported in Delhi. The scare has hit the Indian share market as well, and there have been massive plunges in portfolios across the country, with Sensex ending 214 points or 0.55% lower at 38,409.48 and Nifty ending 52 points lower at 11,251 on 4th March 2020.
Small caps and mid caps in particular have taken a beating in recent days, with their indices ending 2.53% and 2.83% lower on the BSE respectively. As most experts would say, it’s time to stick to the solid, large caps companies. These guys have been around since decades and they’ve seen plenty worldwide crashes like this most recent coronavirus epidemic. Yet, they come out strong.
A delivery percentage usually indicates that people are showing interest in a particular stock and during this slowdown, some of the few stocks that have maintained a 60%+ delivery percentage are HDFC Bank, Page Industries, Hindustan Unilever, Wipro, HCL Technologies and more, while the highest on the chart is Cholamandalam Investment and Fin Co with a delivery percentage of 67.85%.
Britannia Industries is one particular stock that has done well, ending 1.21% higher on the NSE today and this stock is currently witnessing short covering, which indicates selling because of an increase in price. Investors may be slightly wary of this stock seeing a sharp fall, but we don’t believe so.
Stocks to watch
- HDFC: 5 basis points reduction in retail prime lending rate (RPLR) on housing loans.
- Bank of Baroda: Moody’s cut Bank of Baroda’s baseline credit assessment rating to Ba3 from Ba2.
- Maruti Suzuki: Partnered with HDB Financial Services to allow car loans to customers.
- HDFC Bank: Reconstituted its search panel to identify a successor to their current MD.
- Ashok Leyland: Interim dividend record date fixed for 20th March.
- GMR Infrastructure: Rs. 38 lakh shares acquired by promoters via open market on 2nd March.
