BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 settled over 0.5 per cent higher on Wednesday on the back of investors interest in Reliance Industries, auto and financial stocks while the fall in IT majors capped the upside for the benchmarks at the end of a range bound trade.

Besides the positive macro economic indicators, buying by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) gave a boost to the indices as they bought equities worth ₹2,170.32 crore, show exchange’s provisional data.

However, amid monthly derivatives expiry, and financial year-end, market experts cautioned investors about impending volatility tomorrow.

While the Sensex gained 526.01 points, or 0.73 per cent, to 72,996.31, the broader Nifty50 advanced 118.95 points, or 0.54 per cent, to 22,123.65.

In the broad market, BSE 500 ended 0.41 per cent higher, BSE SmallCap gained 0.7 per cent but MidCap closed flat.. Of the 3,949 stocks traded, 1,471 advanced, 2,381 declined and 97 remained unchanged. While 129 stocks hit 52-week high, 153 stocks hit 52-week low on BSE.

Also read: Rupee falls 7 paise to close at 83.36 against US dollar

Among the sectoral indices, BSE Services gained 1.01 per cent, followed by Capital Goods (1 per cent), Consumer Durables (0.98 per cent), Industrials (0.97 per cent) and Realty (0.93 per cent). On the other hand, BSE Information Technology (0.48 per cent), Teck (0.40 per cent) and Metal (0.31 per cent) were the top losers.

Within the Nifty pack, Reliance Industries (3.49 per cent), Maruti Suzuki India (2.53 per cent), Bajaj Auto (2.16 per cent) and Bajaj Finance (1.72 per cent) and Titan (1.62 per cent) were the major gainers, while UPL (2.07 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (2.04 per cent), Wipro (1.64 per cent), Apollo Hospitals (1.54 per cent) and Dr Reddy’s (1.42 per cent) were the major laggards.

Eye On FIIs’ Moves

According to Ruchit Jain, Lead Research, 5paisa.com, Nifty has consolidated within a range in last couple of sessions but the biasness seems positive as the intraday declines are witnessing buying interest. 

“FII’s had majority of their positions on the short side in the March series, but it will be important to see how they roll over their positions ahead of another long weekend. In the options segment, 22000 put options have decent open interest outstanding which would be seen as the important support on the expiry day, while the 61.8 percent retracement of the recent correction at 22220 is the immediate hurdle,” Jain added.

Domestic & Global Cues

“The recent upward revision in India’s GDP growth forecast by both Moody’s and S&P Global rating agencies uplifted the sentiments. Further, decline in domestic current account balance in Oct-Dec and more than ₹50,000 crore buying by DIIs in the month of March added to positivity,” Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said.

Mid- & Small-Caps Rebound

According to Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, stock-specific actions and positive undercurrents due to a healthy economic growth forecast led the market towards a positive closure.

“However, due to the holiday-led truncated week, investors are now focusing on US GDP data tomorrow and next week’s RBI policy announcement to gauge market direction. The mid- and small-cap space are outperforming as investors got bargaining opportunities, but volumes are low,“ Nair added.

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