It was a shortened week at the bourses with a holiday on Tuesday because of Dusshera. It was a relief as markets fell that much less. Benchmark indices lost on all four days of the week. BSESENSEX lost 1,779.34 points or 2.38% to close at 72,894.95 points while NIFTY lost 602.60 points or 2.61% to close at 22,516.40 points. BANKNIFTY lost 1,556.65 points or 2.79% to close at 54,287.35 points. Broader markets saw BSE100, BSE200 and BSE500 lose 2.69%, 3.23% and 3.75% respectively. BSEMIDCAP lost 3.46% while BSESMALLCAP was down 4.66%. There were no sectorial gainers and the one to fall the least was BSETECH which was down 0.35%. The worst performer was BSECAPITAL GOODS, which lost 7.54%. It was a four day blood bath on the bourses and the biggest cause for worry is crude oil which is around 117$.

The Indian Rupee lost 16 paisa or 0.17% to close at Rs 95.13 to the US Dollar. Dow Jones gained on three of the five trading sessions and lost on two. It was up 212.75 points or 0.41% to close at 52,215.16 points.

The event of the week was the launch and successful completion of India’s biggest IPO, Jio Platforms Limited. The Rs 30,200 crores issue in a price band of Rs 1,065-1,119 was oversubscribed a massive 22.19 times. It has become the most application garnering issue not only in India but the globe, with a subscription number of 1,34,05,794 application forms. This makes this number a world record and will take a lot to be beaten in the future. The breakup of subscription saw QIB portion subscribed 70.55 times, HNI 14 times, Retail portion 2.72 times, Shareholders portion 7.6 times anḍ Employee portion 2.93 times. In the retail segment, the number of applications exceeded 1 crore which makes the entire issue subscription ‘AWESOME’ and keeps one wondering what happened. It has taken the markets by storm and caught most ‘pundits’ on the wrong foot. The share would list on Wednesday the 28th of October. The grey market premium has been moving in a broad range of Rs 240-250, which makes the trading range for listing day at Rs 1,360-1,370, with lower levels of Rs 1,340 or thereabouts and Rs 1,390 or thereabouts on the higher side. It would be interesting to note what fresh institutional purchases happen on that day in the counter.

There were six mainboard listings during the week, with four of them being on Friday. Suffice to say that the listing performance did not extend from subscription. Bonfiglioli Transmission Limited had issued shares at Rs 586 and was oversubscribed 46.06 times. The share traded in a range of Rs 527.40-607, and finally closed at Rs 576.35, a loss of Rs 9.65 or 1.65%.

Yet another share was Zetwerk Manufacturing Businesses Limited which had issued shares at Rs 151. The issue was subscribed 3.1 times. The trading range of the share was Rs 127.40-161 and the share closed at Rs 138.30, a loss of Rs 12.70 or 8.41%.

The other two shares to list on Friday were Tonbo Imaging India Limited which had a stellar performance and gained Rs 433.65 or 61.95% to close at Rs 1,133.65.

The fourth listing was from Sahajanand Medical Technologies’ Limited and gained Rs 34.20 or 9.94% to close at Rs 378.20.The present value of NIFTY at 22,516.40 points is lower by 167.35 points or 0.74% compared to the opening level of 22,683.75 points. With just 2 days to go, the bears have the advantage bas crude at 117 dollars is not comfortable for anyone. We also need to understand that next Tuesday, the 3rd of November, the US mid-term elections would be held and this time around the whole world is glued to see what happened just before and after the elections to Trump.   

Markets in the coming week will be under pressure due to crude at new levels. Support on the NIFTY exists at levels of around 22,200 points and lower at 21,700-21,800 points. On the resistance side, we have levels of 22,700-22,800 acting as very strong resistance. The strategy would be to refrain from fresh long positions and to sell or lighten positions on any short covering rally that may happen.

Conserve cash and hold on to cash. One doesn’t know when cash will make you win a lottery.

Arun Kejriwal (Market Veteran Investor & Opinion Maker)