It was an eventful week, full of suspense, expectations and finally despair. It all ended on a little depressing and quiet note with expectations not being delivered. What could happen this week? Not much, likely to be a quiet week and one which will come and go and action again build up for the week to follow. We have entered the third and final week for results reporting season and now the flood of results will pick up. Those companies which declare better and spectacular results would be in focus hereon.

The week saw markets gain on two of the five trading sessions and lose on three. At the end of it, BSESENSEX lost 273.17 points or 0.32% to close at 83,938.71 points while NIFTY lost 73.05 points or 0.28% to close at 25,722.10 points. BANKNIFTY gained 76.75 points or 0.13% to close at 57,776.35 points. The broader markets were a mixed bag with BSE100 losing 0.02%. BSE200 and BSE500 gained 0.12% and 0.11% respectively. BSEMIDCAP gained 0.96% while BSESMALLCAP was up 0.67%.

The Indian Rupee was under pressure and lost 92 paisa or 1.05% to close at Rs 88.68 to the US Dollar. Dow Jones gained on three of the five trading sessions and lost on two. It gained 355.75 points or 0.75% to close at 47,562.87 points.

GST numbers for October 25 were higher on expected lines. They were at Rs 1.96 lakh crores, higher by 4.6% on a year on year basis. This was also higher than the September number of Rs 1.89 lakh crores. Readers would recall that the government had cut rates from 22nd of September across categories and this had boosted consumption sales across categories. This also coincided with the festive period of Dusshera-Diwali. The true comparison of the same would be when numbers are reported for November as that would reflect the continuing sales across categories which would be a sustainable number.

The mad IPO rush continues unabated. The issue from Orkla India closed on Friday and currently the issues from Studds Accessories Limited and Lenskart Solutions Limited is open with the former closing on Monday and the latter closing on Tuesday. This week would also see the issue from Billionbrains Garage Ventures Limited, popularly known as ‘GROWW’ opening on Tuesday and closing on Friday. The road show of Pine Labs Limited which would open on Friday the 7th of November and close on Tuesday the 11th of November will be held in Mumbai today. It’s a large size issue with a fresh issue component of Rs 2,080 crores and an offer for sale of 8.23 crore shares in a price band of Rs 210-221. The company has suffered losses over the last three financial years and has made profits for the first time as per the RHP data in the first quarter of FY26. The profit is Rs 4.78 crores on revenues of Rs 616 crores. The negative EPS of the company for financial year FY25 was Rs -1.45. Based on this, the PE multiple on a negative basis is a massive 144.83-152.41 times. In my over three decades in stock markets have seen loss making companies but have not heard of negative PE. Have only heard of the convenient manner of zero PE or infinite PE as EPS is negative. Something new. As the company is loss making, the retail portion is 10% of the issue size.

USA and China have come to some agreement on trade and accordingly tariffs on them have been lowered to 47% while currently the same on India are 3% higher at 50%. Prima facie this is negative for us, but the fact that our deal has yet to be announced, there could always be changes. The upcoming election in Bihar is important from a political standpoint. Elections would be held in 2 phases for the 243 seat legislature on 6th and 11th of November. This would be followed by counting and results on 14th of November. I believe our trade deal with the USA would be announced post the declaration of results and would be positive, giving us an edge over China. In case that is not so, we need not sign the deal in the first place.

Markets in the last week have failed to move up and hold new ground gained and lost over the last fortnight. This puts the trading zone for markets slightly lower in the coming week. Further, FPI selling has again picked up steam and whatever shorts were covered have been reinstituted at higher levels. Now, we need news flow which could come from results (unlikely) or trade deal to kick start the markets and propel us higher. This eventuality could happen around the 14th of November when Bihar election results are declared and also likely that trade deal is also announced.

October futures expired on a positive note for the bulls and in the two days remaining during the week, they added to their kitty. The series ended with gains of 1,325.10 points or 5.38% to close at 25,936.20 points.

The way IPOs are sucking out liquidity is a cause of concern. We need to understand that Mutual funds who are big subscribers have pressure on them when these IPOs do not perform. They sell those underperforming shares. Secondly to keep money ready to apply for new issues, they have to sell whatever is not performing from the current portfolio. In short, fail to perform, stock is liquidated, adding pressure to markets.

Markets have a mid-week trading holiday on Wednesday the 5th of November on account of Guru Nanak’s birthday. It has been noticed in the past that mid-week holidays are not good for the market as momentum is lost after two days of trading and post the holiday it is again two days only. This should be kept in mind.

Markets have immediate support at 25,500-25,600 points and lower down at 25,100-25,200 points. On the upside we have resistance at 26,100-26,200 points. We will have to bide time this week and allow markets to find their own levels awaiting news.

Trade cautiously.

Arun Kejriwal (Market Veteran Investor & Opinion Maker)