Stock market updates: A smart recovery in the fag-end of the session, aided by gains in private banks, metals, and pharma stocks, helped the benchmark indices reverse losses and end near day's high on Thursday. Among the headline indices, the BSE barometer Sensex ended 259.6 points, or 0.5 per cent, higher at 48,803.7 levels while the NSE's Nifty50 settled at 14,581 levels, up 76.6 points or 0.5 per cent supported by gains in heavyweights like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, TCS, HDFC, Reliance Industries, ONGC, and Axis Bank. These stocks gained in the range of 1 per cent to 4 per cent.
Earlier in the day, the benchmark Sensex and Nifty hit a low of 48,010 and 14,353, respectively as a record spike of 200,739 cases in daily Covid-19 cases, weekend curfew in Delhi, and WPI inflation at an 8-year high of 7 per cent made investors jittery, nudging them to take profits off the table on concerns of a delay in economic recovery.
Investors were quick to off-load shares of auto and PSU banks. That apart, profit booking was also seen in select FMCG and IT stocks such as Nestle India, Britannia, Infosys and Tech M.
Overall, the Nifty Bank, Pharma, Metal, IT, Financial Services, and Private Bank indices ended up to 1.4 per cent higher while the Nifty Auto, Realty, PSU Bank, and FMCG slipped between 0.04 per cent and 1.5 per cent.
In the broader markets, the S&P BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices ended 0.1 per cent and 0.03 per cent lower at 19,923 and 20,799.7 levels, respectively. In the intra-day deals, the indices had hit a low of 19,641 and 20,555, respectively.
The sudden rise in Covid cases and the micro-lockdowns imposed across key economic hubs in India have also made foreign brokerages trim their return expectation from Indian equities over the next 12 months.
After Nomura, that recently cut its March 2022 Nifty50 target to 15,340 (earlier target: 14,680 by December 2021), analysts at Goldman Sachs have now tempered their expectation, albeit modestly. They now see the Nifty at 16,300 levels in 12 months (16,500 earlier). However, they have retained their ‘overweight’ stance on India for now.
READ MORE Global markets
Asian shares slipped on Thursday dragged down by Chinese stocks as recent upbeat economic data raised fears of monetary policy tightening. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.1 per cent while New Zealand's benchmark index fell 0.9 per cent. Japan's Nikkei, however,finished 0.07 per cent higher.
Chinese shares stumbled with the blue-chip CSI300 index down 0.9 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropping 0.8 per cent.
On the other hand, European shares hit record peak on rising commodity prices. The pan-European STOXX 600 index and UK’s commodity-heavy FTSE 100 gained 0.3 per cent each.
(With inputs from Reuters)
 "Fag-end buying lifts Sensex 260 pts, Nifty tops 14,550; Infosys dips 2.5%")
