Financials lift Sensex 508 pts up; pharma stocks, HCL Tech miss D-St rally

Stock market updates: A healthy management commentary by ICICI Bank, post its March quarter results announcement, fuelled rally across the financial sector at the bourses on Monday. Add to it, a positive investment sentiment in the global markets helped the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 indices vault over 1 per cent.

That apart, medical support from across the globe, to help India douse the Covid-19 fire, along with acceleration of the mass vaccination drive supported sentiment on Dalal Street.

Among the key headline indices, the 30-share index jumped 508 points to end the day at 48,386.5 levels. The index had started gap-up and had extended gains to hit a high of 48,668 in the intra-day deals.

Only seven of the index constituents ended the day in the red with HCL Tech (down 2.7 per cent) being at the forefront. Following a miss on Q4 result, most brokerages slashed their earnings expectations from HCL Tech, resulting in a dip in the stock. However, they remain bullish on the counter on account of inexpensive valuations and the probability of strong growth in FY22. READ MORE

On the upside, Axis Bank (up 4 per cent), ICICI Bank, Ultratech Cement, State Bank of India, and HUL ended the session as the top gainers. 

On the NSE, the broader Nifty50 index settled below the 14,500-mark at 14,485 levels, up 143.6 points. Earlier today, the index had hit a high of 14,557 levels. 

The broader markets, that were earlier performing in-line with benchmarks, evenutally underperformed at the bourses. The S&P BSE MidCap index closed 0.6 per cent higher while the BSE SmallCap index was up 0.8 per cent. 

Sectorally, investors booked profit in the pharma counters after a healthy rally over the past week. The index settled 0.87 per cent down and was dragged down by losses in Cipla, Aurobindo Pharma, Lupin, Torrent Pharma, and Biocon, down between 0.5 per cent and 3 per cent.

On the contrary, the Nifty Realty index gained 3.4 per cent on the NSE, followed by gains in The Nifty Metal index (up 2 per cent), Nifty Bank (up 1.7 per cent), and Nifty Financial Services (up 1.3 per cent).

Global markets

European stocks clawed their way higher on Monday as world markets began the week in a relatively upbeat mood following further signs last week that economies are recovering rapidly. The broader Euro STOXX 600 gained 0.23 per cent while Germany’s DAX rose 0.22 per cent. Britain’s FTSE 100 climbed 0.21 per cent. 

Asian shares also rallied where MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan reached its highest since March 18. The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 countries, rose 0.2 per cent.

(With inputs from Reuters)

4:36 PM

MARKET CLOSING COMMENT :: Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities

Indian equity benchmark indices climbed on April 26 in line with other global peers. The Nifty opened up and made an intra day high at 1005 Hrs. It later fell making lower top lower bottom; but even then it ended 1% or 144 points higher (its biggest advance in almost two weeks) at 14485.

 

Nifty crossed 14526 but closed below it. Falling volumes on an up-day denotes caution while a healthy advance decline ratio and relatively better performance of broader indices means that the traders/investors are focused more on the broader markets than the largecaps, where there is a risk of selloff by institutions. In the near term, 14339-14405 band could offer support to the Nifty while a breach of 14526 could take the Nifty up to 14698.  

4:29 PM

MARKET CLOSING COMMENT :: Ajit Mishra, VP - Research, Religare Broking

Markets started the week on an optimistic note led by supportive global cues. After a gap-up opening, the benchmark continued its positive momentum led by healthy buying in sectors such as banking(thanks to ICICI results), metals and consumer durables. The broader markets too traded in tandem and ended higher in the range of 0.6-0.9%. Finally, Nifty closed at 14,485 levels, up by 1%. 

 

Upbeat global cues combined with supportive earnings are helping the index to hold at higher levels despite COVID challenges. Also, the recent news of various countries extending help to India in the COVID flight further boosting the sentiment. We remain cautiously optimistic as volatility is likely to remain high on the back of derivative expiry and upcoming earnings announcements. Banking, metal and pharma are showing tremendous resilience and should be preferred for long trades on dips

4:19 PM

TECH VIEW :: Ashis Biswas, Head of Technical Research at CapitalVia Global Research

The market manages to hold above the Nifty 50 Index support zone of 14400. The technical factors are aligned to support a range-bound market movement as we advance. Therefore, the short-term traders use the rally to exit while attempting to buy a dip approach. The market breadth to improve, indicating the likelihood of higher volatility in the market. A decisive breakout above 14500 is likely to turn the scenario bullish.

4:13 PM

MARKET CLOSING COMMENT :: Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services

With the support of strong global markets, accumulation in the domestic market increased as the rate of infection is slowing down with a flattening path. Buying interest was broad-based led by banking, realty and metal stocks with a hope that we are nearing the peak of infection. Banking stocks outshined other major sectoral indices due to the positive beginning of quarterly results. The market may remain volatile in the coming days as covid cases continue to be high, April F&O expiry and upcoming FOMC meeting

4:07 PM

MARKET RECAP :: S Ranganathan, Head of Research at LKP Securities

Positive global cues coupled with good numbers from ICICI Bank ensured a strong opening on Monday for markets led by BFSI and Metals. However, we did see bouts of profit-taking in Afternoon Trade-in FMCG & Pharma stocks ahead of a big earnings day tomorrow

4:03 PM

MARKET CLOSING COMMENT :: Mohit Nigam, Head, PMS & Advisory at Hem Securities

Markets took a breather from the downward movement it witnessed in the past week and moved up by around 1% today. Financials were the key drivers today leading the momentum after a decent result declared by ICICI Bank. We feel that Covid related developments in the next 2 weeks, corporate results & commentary are going to be very crucial to gauge the direction of the markets in the following months. 14200 remains a key support on the downside.

3:59 PM

BSE Snapshot :: M-cap of all BSE listed firms climbs above Rs 204-trillion mark

3:57 PM

Broader market :: Vimta Labs, BGR Energy, Srei Infra lift SmallCap index

3:54 PM

Broader market :: S&P BSE MidCap index underperforms benchmarks

>> SAIL, Future Retail, Gidrej properties, and Natco Pharma end as top gainers on the index

3:51 PM

ICICI Bank, RIL :: Stocks that lifted the Sensex today

3:46 PM

Sectoral trends on the NSE

3:43 PM

Sensex Heatmap at Close

Top gainers: Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Ultratech Cemekt

Top drags: HCL Tech, Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank

3:34 PM

CLOSING BELL

Among the key headline indices, the 30-share index jumped 508 points to end the day at 48,386.5 levels. The index had started gap-up and had extended gains to hit a high of 48,668 in the intra-day deals.

On the NSE, the broader Nifty50 index settled below the 14,500-mark at 14,485 levels, up 143.6 points. Earlier today, the index had hit a high of 14,557 levels. 

3:27 PM

RIL, BP start Satellite Cluster gas field production ahead of schedule

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) and BP today announced the start of production from the Satellite Cluster gas field in block KG-D6, ahead of schedule.

 

The second of the three deep-water gas developments planned jointly, was expected to start production in mid-2021.

 

RIL and BP have been developing R Cluster, Satellite Cluster and MJ in the KG-D6 block– which together are expected to produce around 30 mmscmd (1 billion cubic feet a day) of natural gas by 2023, meeting up to 15 percent of the country’s gas demand, said RIL in its exchange filing today. READ MORE

3:14 PM

Gold gains as rising virus cases, easing dollar boost safe-haven appeal

Gold gained on Monday, as surging COVID-19 cases boosted the metal's safe-haven appeal, aided by a weaker dollar ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's meeting this week, while auto-catalyst palladium held below a record peak scaled last week.

 

Spot gold was up 0.1% at $1,778.22 per ounce by 0707 GMT. U.S. gold futures fell 0.1% to $1,775.70 per ounce. READ MORE