Rising Covid Cases Drag Indices Lower, Dr Reddy’s Top Loser

Benchmark indices ended the day lower, capping a bad weak for Indian equities, plagued largely by worries of sharply rising Covid cases. The markets gave up almost all of the gains made on Thursday. The Nifty lost 65 points in trade to end the day at 14,341 points. For the week the Nifty lost almost 2 per cent.

Analysts fear that a lockdown in some states along with curfews, could shave upto 1 per cent of the GDP for FY 2021-22. This is what has led to some selling pressure through the month of April.

In Today's trade IT stocks like Tech Mahindra and Infosys saw some serious selling. Wipro too was among the few IT stocks that managed saw nearly 2 per cent losses. Among the stocks that lost ground from the Nifty were Mahindra and Mahindra, Grasim, Britannia and Hindalco Industries. Shares in Wonderla lost ground after reports of closing some of its facilities in the South on account of rising Covid cases.

Cyient saw its shares fall, after gaining nearly 4 per cent in early trade after the company reported higher consolidated profit at Rs 103.1 crore for the 4th quarter of 2021 against Rs 95.4 crore in Q3FY21. Meanwhile, most of Europe was trading with losses, following weak overseas cues from the US.