A tug of war between bulls and bears was ultimately won by the bulls on Thursday, the day of the expiry of the weekly F&O contracts. That apart, buoyancy in the global markets on the back of a $2 trillion US government spending plan, and record GST collection at Rs 1.24 trillion for the month of March back home gave the requisite armour to investors.
Among the frontline indices, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex reclaimed the 50,000-mark on a closing basis and ended at 50,030, after advancing 521 points or 1.05 per cent. Earlier in the day, the index had briefly slipped in the red to touch a low of 49,478.5. On the NSE, the Nifty50 index closed at 14,867 levels, up 177 points or 1.2 per cent.
The indices' breadth remained firmly in the favour of the bulls as 25 of the 30 constituents on the Sensex and 41 of the 50 constituents on the Nifty settled the session in the green. IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, and UltraTech Cement outperformed the Sensex today, up between 2 per cent and 4 per cent. JSW Steel, Hindalco, Adani Ports, Tata Steel, and Hero MotoCorp were the additional gainers on the Nifty, rallying up to 8 per cent.
On the downside, HUL, Nestle India, TCS, Divis Labs, HDFC Life, TCS, and Titan ended lower between 0.32 per cent and 1.3 per cent.
Taking into consideration the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices' 1.66 per cent and 2 per cent gains, respectively, the overall market breadth was in the ratio of 1:3 in the favour of advances.
As regards sectoral performance, the Nifty Metal index settled over 5 per cent higher on the NSE today on hopes of a strong demand going forward. Individually, Tata Steel's market-cap was back above the Rs 1 trillion-mark in Thursday's intra-day trade after the stock hit its highest level since June 2008, on healthy operational performance and expectation of improvement in the company's outlook. In the past one week, the stock has rallied 16 per cent, against 2.2 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex.
That apart, shares of JSW Steel rose 5 per cent and hit a new high of Rs 490.95 on the BSE after credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service changed the outlook on all ratings of the company’s instruments to 'stable' from 'negative'.
Meanwhile, the Nifty PSU bank index ended 2.6 per cent higher after the government announced capital infusion of Rs 14,500 crore in 4 PSBs.
The Nifty Bank, Auto, Financial Services, Private Bank, and Pharma indices gained up to 2 per cent while the Nifty IT and Realty indices closed with less than a per cent gain.
Among other individual stocks, the dream run of Gautam Adani-led group companies continued on the bourses on the first day of the new financial year 2021-22 with Adani Transmission and Adani Total Gas stocks hitting their respective new highs, while Adani Enterprises traded close to its record high. Besides, Adani Power, Adani Green Energy (AGEL) and Adani Ports gained in the range of 2 per cent to 6 per cent in the intra-day trade.
The Group was the biggest gainer in FY21 as the seven listed Adani Group companies had a combined market capitalisation of Rs 6.7 trillion till Tuesday — up more than 5x from the group’s m-cap of Rs 1.31 trillion at the end of March 2020.
Global markets
Stocks crept higher on Thursday following their weakest quarter in a year, while higher Treasury yields supported the dollar. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei rose 1.3 per cent as a survey showed big manufacturers' mood bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels.
In Europe, the pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.5 per cent, the German DAX climbed 0.6 per cent to hit a record high, while the UK's FTSE 100 also gained 0.6 per cent.
Nasdaq Futures, meanwhile, were last up 0.9 per cent and S&P 500 futures added 0.4 per cent.
Domestic markets shall remain shut on April 2 on account of Good Friday holiday.
 "Market Wrap, April 1: Here's all that happened in the markets today")
