It was a subdued week on expected lines at the bourses. With a mid-week holiday on Wednesday, markets made a small uptick on Monday, then lost pre-holiday and continued to lose post the holiday as well. There were gains on one of the four trading sessions and losses on three. BSESENSEX lost 722.43 points or 0.86% to close at 83,216.28 points while NIFTY lost 229.80 points or 0.89% to close at 25,492.30 points. BANKNIFTY gained 100.45 points or 0.17%. The broader markets saw BSE100, BSE200, BSE500 lose 0.85%, 0.77% and 0.84% respectively. BSEMIDCAP lost 0.59% while BSESMALLCAP was down 1.53%. The top sectorial gainer was BSEBANKEX which was up 0.12% while the top loser was BSEPOWER down 3.44%. , 

The Indian Rupee gained 9 paisa or 0.10% to close at Rs 88.68 to the US Dollar. Dow Jones gained on two of the five trading sessions and lost on three. It was down 575.77 points or 1.21% to close at 46,987.10 points. 

New IPO listings have continued their negative trend on listing day. Orkla India was yet another example of a company doing well during roadshows, having a positive premium throughout issue subscription and just before listing, and yet failing the last test. Against the issue price of Rs 730, the share opened at Rs 751.50, made a high of Rs 755, low of Rs 693.35 and closed at Rs 713.40 a loss of Rs 16.60. All prices are of BSE.  On Friday, the share lost further ground and closed at Rs 706.75, a loss of Rs 23.25 or 3.18%. 

The other share to list on the main board was Studds Accessories Limited which had issued shares at Rs 585. The share opened at Rs 570, made a high at Rs 585, low at Rs 555.80 and closed at Rs 560.45. The loss was Rs 24.55 or 4.20%. Clearly showing that there is a big fatigue factor in the markets as far as primary issuances are concerned. 

Shares of Lenskart Solutions Limited which had issued shares at Rs 402 will list on the bourses today. GMP has been quite wild in the share and has fallen from around Rs 135 levels to as low as Rs 2. Currently it trades at Rs 10. Irrespective of where the issue opens, this was a hotly debated issue in terms of valuations, promoter greed and various market participants commenting on their subscribing and not subscribing to the issue. Reasons were offered for both cases. These types of comments are new to the market place and tantamount to influencing investor participation.  Not sure how the regulator would look at this new trend as it seems a little tough to digest. 

The IPO rush continues with Pine Labs Limited having opened on Friday.  EMMVEE Photovoltaic Power Limited would open on Tuesday and would be followed by Physicswallah Limited following and alsoopening on Tuesday. The rush to launch IPO just never seems to end. 

USA seems to continue to have problems with tariffs. Supreme Court which is hearing the matter on the same seems to be caught in a bind with judges from both political parties seeming not to agree with the rational of Trump in imposing the tariffs and bringing world trade to a big mess. God knows, what the final outcome would be but things have become messy. The whole tariff situation is work in progress and extremely fluid. 

Friday, results for Bihar elections would be announced and the exit poll outcome would be declared on Tuesday evening. There would be repercussions post these announcements.

The last week of results reporting has begun and would end on 15th of November. Bharti Airtel declared an excellent set of results, yet the price fell. Wonder whether the impact of primary markets is also being felt on secondary markets. 

Coming to levels in the week ahead, expect markets to look for triggers which seem missing. Support exists at levels of 25,200-25,300 and lower down at levels of 24,600-24,800 points. On resistance, 26,000-26,150 is a tough nut to crack. God willing if it does happen we could see levels of around 26,500 points. The strategy would be continue intra-day trades as markets are currently looking for direction and clarity on the trade front. Until that happens it makes sense to lie low. 

Trade cautiously. 

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.