Sensex, Nifty Decline For Second Day After Economic Survey Pegs 5% Growth For FY20

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes fell for second day in a row after the Economic Survey, which was tabled in the parliament on Friday, pegged GDP growth of 5 per cent for the current financial year down from 7 per cent projected in the Economic Survey which was presented in July last year. The Survey has also projected the economic growth to be in the range of 6-6.5 per cent in the next financial year. The benchmarks had a topsy-turvy session as the Sensex moved in a range of 483 points and the Nifty 50 index closed below its symbolically important level of 12,000.

The Sensex ended 190 points or 0.4 per cent lower at 40,723 and the Nifty fell 74 points or 0.6 per cent to shut shop at 11,962.

The Economic Survey 2020, presented by Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Krishnamurthy Subramanian a day ahead of the Budget, pegged the gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 5 per cent in the current financial year, which it said would pick up to 6-6.5 per cent in financial year ending March 2021. That marked a sharp downward revision from the estimate of 7 per cent growth for the current financial year in last year's Economic Survey.

Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty Metal index's 2.3 per cent fall. Nifty Pharma, Nifty IT, Nifty Auto and Nifty FMCG indexes also fell between 0.5-1.2 per cent each.

On the other hand, Nifty Realty index was top gainer, up 1.2 per cent.

On the corporate front, the country's largest lender by assets, State Bank of India, on Friday reported that its profit in October-December period rose 41 per cent to Rs 5,583.36 crore compared with Rs 3,954.81 crore in the same quarter last year. The higher profit in December quarter came on the account of lower provisioning for bad loans. The shares of SBI ended 2.4 per cent higher at Rs 318.10.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Auto, Tech Mahindra, Titan and Bharti Infratel were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, Tata Motors was top Nifty loser, the stock fell 5 per cent to Rs 177. On Thursday, the auto major had exceeded Street expectations to report a Rs 1,738.3-crore profit for the December-ended quarter, as against its worst ever quarterly loss of Rs 26,992.54 crore in the corresponding period a year ago, on the back of improved profitability at its British subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover.

ONGC, Power Grid, UPL, Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, TCS and HCL Technologies were also among the laggards.