Market Wrap, Feb 24: Here's all that happened in the markets today

India's largest stock exchange, the National Stock Exchange (NSE), abruptly shut its cash and derivatives segment today, following a glitch which froze stock prices, triggering panic among investors. Trading was halted at 11:40 am on the NSE and resumed only at 3:30 pm. The glitch, which came a day ahead of the monthly F&O expiry for the February series, caused massive volatility during the last hour of trade and the same may continue on Thursday as well.

Post resumption, both the Sensex and the Nifty indices witnessed bouts of volatility as investors scurried to square off their positions, and execute morning trades.

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex zoomed to day's high during the fag-end of the session, soaring 1,130 points. The index, however, ended 1,030 points, or 2 per cent, higher at 50,782 levels. HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI, and HDFC, up in the range of 3 per cent and 5 per cent, were the top gainers among the 23 stocks that ended in the green.

On the contrary, Dr Reddy's Labs, TCS, Sun Pharma, Asian Paints and Power Grid declined between 0.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent and closed as top laggards on the index.

Weightage-wise, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, HDFC, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank supported the index.

Overall, market breadth on the BSE remained titled towards advances with over 1,850 stocks settling higher, compared with around 1,100 stocks that slipped today.

Meanwhile, the Nifty50 closed above the 14,950-mark, up 272 points or 1.9 per cent, at 14,982 levels. The index hit an intra-day high of 15,009.

In the broader markets, the S&P BSE SmallCap index settled 1 per cent higher on the back of gains in IIFL Securities, Manali Petrochemicals, Religare Broking, Dredging Corporation of India, and Nava Bharat Ventures, that gained in the range of 11 per cent and 20 per cent.

The S&P BSEMidCap index, on the other hand, ended 0.77 per cent higher.

Sectorally, the Nifty Bank and Private Bank indices closed 4 per cent higher each after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government has lifted embargo on grant of government business to private banks. Federal Bank, Bandhan Bank, IDFC First Bank, and IndusInd Bank remained top performers on the Nifty Private Bank index.

That apart, the Nifty Financial Services, Realty, and Media indices closed between 1 per cent and 2.5 per cent higher. On the downside, the Nifty IT was the only index that ended in the red, down 0.11 per cent.

In the primary market, the 3-day IPO of Heranba Industries was oversubscribed nearly 3 times till 5 PM on the NSE on the second day of the issue.

In another development, the Union Cabinet took two important decisions today. First, it approved a production-linked incentive scheme for IT hardware products including laptops, tablets, personal computers (PCs) and servers. Besides, it also approved the PLI scheme for Pharmaceuticals from FY21 to FY29 to promote production of high value products in the country and increase value addition in exports.

That apart, on the coronavirus front, the Cabinet approved to vaccinate people above 60 years of age and those above 45 years of age with co-morbidities at 10,000 government and over 20,000 private vaccination centres, from March 1.

Lastly an update for Karvy Stock Broking clients. Axis Securities has emerged as the successful bidder to takeover the Trading accounts held by Karvy with NSE, BSE, and MSE. The said transfer of Trading accounts is subject to the remittance of the bid amount and submission of the necessary documents in relation thereto.

Global markets

European shares opened generally higher on Wednesday but world shares remained in the red after a weak Asian session, even after Fed Chair Jerome Powell pushed back against inflation fears.

Europe's STOXX 600 rose in early trading, up 0.1 per cent, Germany's DAX was up 0.4 per cent, but London's FTSE 100 was down 0.7 per cent.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 countries, was down 0.4 per cent.