Stock Market: Adani expose sends indices in tailspin; US greenshoots bring cheers

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By S Jha

New Delhi, August 31: The monthly expiry of the option contracts took place on Thursday under the shadow of fresh expose in the murky deals allegedly in the Adani Group. Two international publications – Guardian and Financial Times – got access to fresh data which allegedly pinned down the trail of money to inflate the stock prices of the Adani Group of companies through shell firms rom tax havens.

Adani Enterprises closed the day with a cut of almost four per cent. Adani Port also tanked by three per cent. Adani Green also dived by almost four per cent. The fresh expose, which the Adani Group claims to be old allegations levelled in the Hindenburg Report, has been lapped by the Opposition to train their guns against the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

Nifty and bank Nifty closed the August series with losses. This loss was a first since March this year. With Assembly elections lining up, the market participants are speaking caution ahead as the September series begins from Friday.

Nifty at one point had tanked by over 125 points during the day, while there was a marginal recovery in the last few minutes. The similar story played out for Bank Nifty. Both the indices are seen to be week in the absence of leadership by the heavyweights.

Yet, the rally in Nasdaq brought cheers to the midcap IT stocks. The likes of Persistent Systems, Mphasis, Birlasoft, Coforge, LT Mindtree and others gained strongly. Some of these midcap stocks from the IT pack, which have relatively underperformed their small peers, scaled their 52-week highs, which is noted to be indicative of strong momentum in such counters.

Maruti on the back of the news report that the automaker is ready with a war chest to hit the festive season with inventory of the cars has been cruising on bullish territory. The scrip briefly crossed the level of Rs 10,000 on Thursday even while the peers such as Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra failed to play the catch up with the market leader.

In the meantime, theme-based stocks continue to rally despite the deep market corrections. Titatgarh Wagons once more asserted that it’s the leader among the railways stocks as the scrip gained strongly on Thursday. Cochin Shipyard, recently listed IPO Cyient DLM, Tejas Networks were among the gainers.