Akshay Bhagwat, Senior Vice-President, Derivatives Research at JM Financial Services, on Monday picked Marico Ltd as one of his top picks. Going by technical charts, the stock has seen strong buying from the support base and it is setting up well for an upward move, Bhagwat told BT TV. One can buy Marico shares at current levels for target prices of Rs 545-550 with a stop loss at Rs 515, he mentioned.

Marico was last seen trading 0.20 per cent higher at Rs 530.95.

The second stock pick which Bhagwat suggested was Coal India Ltd (CIL). Buy CIL shares for targets of Rs 365-370, keeping stop loss placed at Rs 332, the market expert said.

Coal India’s share price was up 1.16 per cent today at Rs 349.25.

Meanwhile, Indian equity benchmarks traded lower in early trade today, dragged by banks, financials, automibile and consumer stocks. Although, broader market (mid- and small-cap) shares were positive.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 477.76 crore on a net basis during the previous session and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) offloaded Rs 565.48 crore, as per provisional stock exchange data.

Nine out of the 15 sector gauges — compiled by the NSE — were trading in the red. Sub-indexes Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Auto, Nifty Consumer Durables and Nifty FMCG were underperforming the NSE platform by falling as much as 0.24 per cent, 0.21 per cent, 0.21 per cent, 0.22 per cent and 0.07 per cent, respectively. However, Nifty IT rose 0.94 per cent.

On the stock-specific front, Adani Enterprises was the top loser in the Nifty pack as the stock cracked 1.21 per cent to trade at Rs 2,182. M&M, Axis Bank, L&T and Bajaj Finance gained up to 1.13 per cent.

In contrast, Divi’s Labs, LTI Mindtree, HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra and Coal India were among the top laggards.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,888 shares were advancing while 1,206 were declining on BSE.

(Disclaimer: Business Today provides stock market news for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. Readers are encouraged to consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.)

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