After taking a day’s breather, markets today continued their upward journey with the benchmark Sensex rebounding over 68 points, while the Nifty edged up 15 points led by pharma, FMCG, banking and auto shares amid sustained foreign fund inflows.

In a volatile session, the 30-share BSE index opened firm at 29,436.77 and then jumped to touch the day’s high of 29,518.32 in early trade. However, it slipped into the negative terrain on across-the-board profit-booking.

Buying by participants in the last 30 minutes of trading helped the gauge bounce back to close 68.22 points or 0.23 per cent higher at 29,448.95.

Intra-day, it had slipped to a low of 29,162.47 due to selling in metal, IT and capital goods, oil and gas stocks.

Yesterday, the Sensex had lost 213 points on profit-booking after breaching the historic 30,000-mark to hit a life-time high of 30,024.74 following a surprise rate cut by RBI.

In four straight trading sessions (February 27, 28, March 2 and 3), the Sensex had gained 847.08 points on the back of strong FII inflows following a growth-oriented Budget.

The 50-share NSE Nifty gained 15.19 points or 0.17 per cent to close at 8,937.75 after shuttling between 8,957.55 and 8,849.35 intra-day. It had shed 73.60 points yesterday after touching its all-time high of 9,119.20.

Gainers, losers

The recovery in the Sensex and the Nifty was supported by gains in Sun Pharma that climbed 3.24 per cent, while Cipla surged 1.81 per cent. Hindustan Unilever surged 2.49 per cent and HDFC Bank rose 1.87 per cent.

Other blue-chip gainers which helped the indices to close in positive zone were HDFC, Dr Reddy, M&M, Wipro and Axis Bank.

Shares of Reliance Infrastructure rose over 3 per cent after it announced acquisition of controlling stake in Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering for up to Rs 2,082.3 crore.

Stocks of steel companies, however, remained under selling pressure on continued profit-booking, brokers said. Hindalco suffered by the most by falling 3.69 per cent, Tata Steel fell 1.57 per cent and Sesa Sterlite was down 1.51 per cent.

The broader markets also performed on revival of buying.

The BSE Mid-cap and Small-cap indices rose up to 0.74 percent.

Meanwhile, Foreign Portfolio Investors bought shares worth Rs 2,786.24 crore yesterday.

Sectoral indices

Among BSE sectoral indices, healthcare index remained investors' favourite and was up 2.54 per cent, followed by FMCG 1.07 per cent, banking 0.56 per cent and auto 0.49 per cent. On the other hand, metal index fell the most by 1.92 per cent, followed by TECk 0.61 per cent, capital goods 0.6 per cent and IT 0.58 per cent.

A report by Dhananjay Sinha of Emkay Global Financial Services said: "Inflation is expected to remain soft through H1FY16 before firming up to below 6% in H2FY16. The fiscal consolidation programme, while delayed, may compensate in quality, especially if state governments are cooperative. Given low capacity utilisation and still-weak indicators of production and credit off-take, it is appropriate for the Reserve Bank to be pre-emptive in its policy action to utilise available space for monetary accommodation.''

The euro hit an 11-year low against the dollar and the region’s stocks nudged higher on Thursday, as the European Central Bank prepared to provide the finer details of its soon-to-be-launched €1 trillion stimulus plan.

The common currency fell to as low as $1.1026, its lowest level since September 2003 and the region’s stock and periphery bond markets opened up as hopes for the ECB’s policy meeting in Cyprus lifted investors’ spirits.

Asian stocks had slipped overnight after Wall Street had continued to pull back from record highs ahead of Friday’s closely-watched US jobs data that will give further clues on how likely the Fed is to start raising rates.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 0.4 per cent with Thai, Malaysian and Chinese stocks all posting losses which offset small gains for the Nikkei in Tokyo and South Korea’s Kospi.

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