The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes rose in noon deals led by gains Reliance Industries, HDFC, ITC, Infosys, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. The Sensex rose as much as 369 points to hit an intraday high of 33,877 and Nifty touched an intraday high of 10,000. The benchmarks were trading in a choppy manner as gains in Reliance Industries, ITC, Bajaj Finance, Infosys and Power Grid were offset with losses in Tata Consultancy Services, Hindustan Unilever, Larsen & Toubro and ICICI Bank.
At 1:28 pm, the Sensex was up 352 points at 33,860 and Nifty advanced 116 points to 9,997.
Investors and traders were evaluating escalating border tensions between India and China and a spike in coronavirus cases, analysts said.
Meanwhile, credit ratings agency Fitch said it had revised its outlook on India to “negative” from “stable”, and affirmed the rating at “BBB-” – the lowest investment grade. The coronavirus pandemic has significantly weakened India’s growth outlook for this year and exposed the challenges associated with a high public-debt burden, Fitch said.
Nine of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Metal index’s 2.5 per cent gain. Nifty Bank, Financial Services, Media, FMCG, PSU Bank, Private Bank and Realty indices also rose between 0.5-1.2 per cent.
On the other hand, Nifty Auto index was top loser, down 0.13 per cent.
Mid- and small-cap shares were witnessing buying interest as the Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.7 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index climbed 1.12 per cent.
Coal India was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 6 per cent to Rs 137 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi today kicked off a two-stage electronic auction process to allocate coal blocks for commercial mining. The move was part of the government’s “Atmanirbhar Bharat” series of measures to help the country battle the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
Vedanta, Bajaj Finserv, Zee Entertainment, Bajaj Finance, Power Grid, ITC, Bharti Infratel and Tata Steel were also among the gainers.
On the flipside, ONGC, Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki, Nestle India, Shree Cements, Hindustan Unilever, TCS, Hero MotoCorp, ICICI Bank and Cipla were among the losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely bullish as 1,729 shares were advancing while 723 were declining on the BSE.
