Nifty settles above 8,000 mark ahead of F&O expiry

Extending gains for the second straight session, the benchmark equity indices settled the day higher ahead of the F&O expiry of November series due tomorrow. 

Positive cues from the Asian markets which surged to one-week highs after the Wall Street saw a second consecutive record-breaking session overnight, contributed to gains. 

The S&P BSE Sensex ended the day at 26,051, up 91 points, while the broader Nifty50 closed at 8,033, up 31 points. 

Broader market outperformed the headline indices with BSE Midcap and Smallcap finishing the day 1.22%, and 1.54% higher, respectively.

"With dollar regaining strength, and with FII selling persisting, stocks failed to add much to Tuesday’s short covering rally. With several states suggesting changes in the model GST law and compensation formula, the GST Council meeting scheduled for November 25 has been postponed to December 2-3, and markets were left without much to push ahead any further,” said Anand James, Chief Market Strategist, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.

“With only a day before November futures expiry, Nifty rollovers were unusually low at 37%, the lowest in more than six months, as against 48.26% seen in the same period last month. Bank nifty’s roll over was also low at 28.91% vs 46.19% in the same period last month." He added.

Sectors such as telecom, real estate, auto, metals and pharma witnessed higher rollovers, with stocks such as Motherson Sumi, Strides Arcolab, Mindtree, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Bata India, leading the rollover charts.

Finance and oil & gas sectors, on the other hand, saw lesser rollovers.

Sectors and stocks 
 

Realty index, the largest gainer among sectoral indices, rose for the second straight day to add over 3%, led by gains in Indiabulls Real Estate, NBCC and Unitech.
 

Metal index gained 2.32% to 10243.72 points, extending its previous day's 2.7% surge on BSE.

The gains came after LMEX, a gauge of six metals traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME), on Tuesday closed 1% higher at 2,738, its highest level since June 2015. It gained 2.3% on Monday.

Engineering firm Larsen & Toubro rose 4.2% in intraday deals, after the company reported an 84% jump in its second-quarter net profit at 14.35 billion rupees ($209.69 million), beating analysts' average expectation of 8.55 billion rupees.

Lupin was the top gainer on the Sensex and surged 4% after the company announced that it received tentative approval for generic Epzicom tablets.

Among decliners, Wockhardt hit a fresh 52-week low of Rs 659, down 4.5% in intraday trade after the company’s UK arm, CP Pharmaceuticals, received a warning letter from the US drug regulator.

Meanwhile, the rupee fell to as low as 68.52 per dollar, the weakest since late February, tracking a decline in emerging-market currencies.

Global markets

European shares rose for a third straight day on Wednesday, with basic resources companies underpinning the market again following a rise in metals prices.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was up 0.2%, with Britain's commodity-heavy FTSE 100 index increasing 0.7%.

Asian stocks bounced to one-week highs as investors tried to share in the exuberance of Wall Street's record run, while lofty US bond yields favored the dollar at the expense of emerging market currencies.

With Japan on holiday, Australia's main index led the action in Asia with a rise of 1.35 percent to a one-month top helped by strength in bulk commodity prices.

China's blue-chip CSI300 index advanced 0.5% to a near 11-month peak as the yuan touched its lowest in six years.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan also added 0.6%, edging further away from four-month lows hit on Monday.

(With inputs from Reuters)