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The benchmark indices pared all its initial losses to turn green as banking stocks recovered after falling up to 4% following RBI’s cash reserve ratio (CRR) hike on incremental deposits.
BSE Sensex fell as much as 133 points during early trade but rebounded later led by gains in telecom, oil & gas and power sector indices. Nifty50 continued to trade above 8,100 levels.
At 2:52 pm, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 26,401, up 85 points, while Nifty50 was quoting 8,140, up 26 points. Broader markets outperformed benchmark indices with BSE Midcap up 1.05% while BSE Small Cap was trading 0.82% higher.
Market breadth indicating the overall health of the market was strong. On BSE, 1,449 shares rose and 665 shares declined. A total of 96 shares were unchanged.
“Going ahead, we expect this bounce to extend towards 8250–8330 level. Momentum traders are advised to stay on the long side, as 8055–7952 would now be seen as a strong support zone,” said Angel Broking in a technical note.
Sectors and stocks
Banking shares pared losses after slipping up to 4% in the early trade, but was still trading around 1% lower. RBI introducing an incremental CRR of 100% for the fortnight beginning Saturday affected the sentiment.
PSU banks like SBI, Bank of Baroda, PNB were down more than 1.5% each, while Federal Bank, ICICI Bank fell 1.63% and 1.75% respectively on BSE.
The intraday supports for the Nifty Bank index are placed around 18,360 and 18,215 whereas resistances are seen around 18665and 18865,” said an Angel Broking report.
Nifty IT cracked over 1.2% from opening highs. TCS, Wipro top laggards down 0.78% and 1.24% respectively while Tata Elxsi gained 2.6%.
Bharti Airtel was the top gainer, up 5.45% on BSE Sensex after completing stake acquisition in Airtel Nigeria. Among other gainers, Adani Ports, Hero Moto, ITC and ONGC were up between 2-3%
Cipla rose 1.82% on BSE after reports that the company is in discussions to sell Cipla Vet, its animal health division.
Global markets
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.6%, led by gains in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In contrast, US stock futures ESc1 slipped 0.2% after their stellar performance this month on hopes President-elect Trump's policy of fiscal spending, deregulation and protection of domestic industries will boost US inflation and benefit Corporate America.
Japan's Nikkei average, which had performed even better than Wall Street thanks to the yen's fall, also lost its lustre, falling 0.3%.
