The Indian stock market witnessed a highly volatile session on March 15, with benchmark indices ending lower. The Nifty ended below the 17,000 mark, while the Sensex was down by 0.59%. At the close, the Sensex was down 344.29 points, or 0.59%, at 57,555.90, and the Nifty was down 71.10 points, or 0.42%, at 16,972.20.
Market experts suggest that the fall was due to the surge in bond yields globally, which raised concerns about inflation and monetary tightening. This led to investors booking profits in stocks, especially in the banking and financial sectors.
However, amidst the bearish trend, some stocks managed to perform well. KEC International, a leading global infrastructure engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) major, gained over 2 percent after securing orders worth Rs 1,028 crore across its various businesses.
The company’s transmission and distribution (T&D) business secured orders for T&D projects in East Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas, including a 500/230 kV GIS substation order in Thailand, a 110 kV transmission line order in Saudi Arabia, a supply of towers in the Middle East, secured by its subsidiary in the UAE, and a supply of towers, hardware, and poles in the Americas, secured by the subsidiary, SAE Towers, the company said in its release.
Dreamfolks Services also rose over 3 percent after agreeing with Visa Worldwide Pte. Ltd. The agreement is for the launch of a global duty-free services program, the company said in an exchange filing.
KPIT Technologies witnessed a jump of over 8 percent after announcing a partnership with Honda to accelerate Honda’s software-defined mobility journey. According to KPIT Tech, the partnership in the mid- to long-term will expand to over 2,000 software and vehicle system professionals from KPIT across the globe to power Honda’s SDM roadmap until the year 2030 and beyond.
Voltas saw a positive close today with the management’s announcement of upcoming price hikes in April during an investor meeting. Nomura has responded with a buy rating on the stock and a target price of Rs 1,083.
Cipla also ended in the green after announcing plans to sell a majority stake of 51.18% in its Uganda-based subsidiary, Cipla Quality Chemical Industries Limited (CQCIL), to Africa Capitalworks SSA for a sale price of $25–30 million. This move will result in CQCIL no longer being a subsidiary of Cipla.
Elgi Equipments witnessed a positive end to the day after its wholly-owned subsidiary, Elgi Compressors USA Inc., acquired a 33.33% stake in CS Industrial Services LLC. CS Industrial Services will act as an exclusive dealer or distributor for Elgi Compressors USA Inc. for the sale of ELGi-branded compressors in the Western New York region.
Mishra Dhatu Nigam ended in the green on March 15 after the company’s board of directors approved the declaration of an interim dividend of Rs 1.68 per equity share (16.80%) of Rs 10 each for the financial year 2022–23.
In conclusion, the Indian stock market witnessed a volatile session on March 15, with the Nifty falling below the 17,000 mark. But some stocks did better than average, which was a bright spot in an otherwise bad trend. Market experts think that worries about global inflation led to the drop in the market, and investors are told to be careful and invest wisely.
