The introduction of the Closing Auction Session (CAS) has added a new dimension to the final minutes of trading in eligible F&O stocks. Since August 3, continuous trading in these stocks ends at 3:15 p.m., followed by a 20-minute auction in which buy and sell orders are pooled and matched to determine the official closing price. While the closing mechanism has changed, the bigger story for capital-market stocks over the past month is the sharp divergence in their performance.
Capital-market stocks saw a mixed performance over the month, with Motilal Oswal Financial Services and MCX emerging as the biggest gainers, both rising over 21%. On the other hand, Indian Energy Exchange, BSE, HDFC AMC and CAMS declined, with losses ranging from around 6% to 10%.
Motilal Oswal, MCX lead the gains
Motilal Oswal Financial Services was the best performer among the stocks in the table, gaining 21.72% between July 31 and September 4. Its closing price rose from ₹851.95 to ₹1,037.
MCX was close behind, gaining 21.66%. The stock moved from ₹2,692.20 on July 31 to ₹3,275.40 on September 4.
Ravi Singh, chief research officer at Mastertrust, attributed the divergence to differences in business exposure rather than CAS alone.
"The sharp divergence reflects differences in business exposure rather than CAS alone. Motilal Oswal has benefited from strong capital-market activity and expectations that institutional trading volumes could improve as the CAS framework settles. MCX has a separate tailwind from strong bullion and commodity derivatives activity."
Anand Rathi Wealth rose 6.86%, closing at ₹2,215.90 compared with ₹2,073.70 at the end of July. Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC gained 4.99%, moving from ₹1,011.80 to ₹1,062.30.
Central Depository Services (India) was up 4.62%, with its closing price rising from ₹1,333 to ₹1,394.60.
Rahul Sharma, head of research at Equity99, said brokerages and wealth-management firms benefited from increased trading and hedging activity during the auction window.
"With introduction of CAS brokerages and wealth management firm benefited the most from increased trading and hedging against market volatility during auction window period this is the reason for rise in Motilal Fin while commodities exchanges remained largely unaffected by CAS."
A mixed performance across the sector
The performance was far from uniform. Indian Energy Exchange recorded the sharpest decline in the group, falling 10.08% from ₹132.24 to ₹118.91.
HDFC Asset Management Company declined 6.02%, while Computer Age Management Services fell 5.95%. BSE was down 6.48%, with its closing price falling from ₹3,646.20 to ₹3,409.80. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company declined 4.65%, while UTI Asset Management Company fell 2.50%.
KFin Technologies was down 0.96%, while Nippon Life India Asset Management slipped just 0.13%.
At the other end of the relatively stable names, Nuvama Wealth Management gained 0.65%, Angel One rose 0.62%, and 360 One Wam edged up 0.15%. Billionbrains Garage Ventures was almost unchanged, declining 0.19%.
Singh said the weaker performance across some names was linked to their individual business exposures.
"On the other hand, BSE has been affected by weaker equity-derivatives activity, while HDFC AMC and CAMS are more dependent on mutual-fund flows and asset-market performance. IEX remains largely unrelated to CAS, with its outlook driven by power-market reforms and competition concerns."
Sharma said the decline in BSE was linked to the effect of CAS on exchanges, while the weakness in CAMS and HDFC AMC could not be directly attributed to the new mechanism.
"Exchanges are the most affected as CAS lead to temporary dip in continuous cash-market trading volumes and lower participation in the final minutes of trade. which is the reason for fall in BSE Ltd. While the drop in CAMS and HDFC AMC cannot be directly linked to CAS."
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The performance gap stands out
The most striking feature of the one-month period is the wide gap between the winners and losers. MOFSL and MCX gained more than 21% each, while Indian Energy Exchange fell more than 10%. BSE, HDFC AMC and CAMS also recorded declines of around 6%. That leaves a market-capital-market basket showing very different trajectories over the same period, rather than a broad sector-wide move in one direction.
