Though the global markets started off weak and Indian bourses followed suit at the opening bell, the stock market has erased all the intraday losses and at 10.26 AM was trading with Nifty above 17,000.
The benchmark stock market indices were up. The Sensex was up 109.99 points or 0.19 percent at 57,217.14. The Nifty was up 21.00 points or 0.12 percent at 17,047.50. About 785 shares have advanced, 2160 shares declined, and 139 shares are unchanged.
Uday Kotak tweeted about how the COVID third variant has injected a fear in the stock market. He tweeted: Omicron variant scare today, something else tomorrow. People, markets and policy makers world wide will shoot from the hip in crisis management without data. Welcome to the ‘never’ normal world we live in!
Mohit Nigam, Head - PMS, Hem Securities said, "The new variant is categorized as the variant of concern by WHO, but its complete impact needs to be seen as the study and analysis are done on the variant. The delta variant prompted the second wave in India during the months of April and May, but markets stood strong during that time and gained further in the next few months. Markets have witnessed its impact in the form of about 9 percent correction from the highs but taking strong support at 16,800 levels."
Prashant Tapse, Vice President (Research), Mehta Equities, said earlier, "the sentiment continues to be impacted by the new strain of COVID-19 – B.1.1.529, which is assigned the Greek letter "Omicron" by the WHO – and possesses deadlier mutations. The discovery of Omicron has triggered global alarm as countries rush to suspend travel."
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said Omicron may spread more quickly than other forms, and preliminary evidence suggested there is an increased risk of reinfection. The new mutations were first discovered in South Africa and have since been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong.
Paytm IPO crashes on debut
Paytm was listed at Rs 1,955, a discount of 9 per cent, on the BSE and plunged to close at Rs 1564.15, down by 27.24 per cent from the IPO price.
Paytm launched India's largest-ever IPO on November 1 with a price band of Rs 2,080- Rs 2,150 a share. The size of the IPO was Rs 18,300 crore — Rs 8,300 crore through fresh issue of equity shares and Rs 10,000 crore through an offer for sale (OFS).
Though the Paytm IPO was oversubscribed, demand for shares was only 1.9 times the supply—in contrast, other recent IPOs, such as of fashion retailer Nykaa (oversubscribed 82 times), food delivery aggregator Zomato (38 times) and insurance products aggregator Policybazaar (17 times) saw much greater investor interest, according to news reports.
