Market Wrap Podcast, July 15: Here's all that happened in the markets today

The domestic benchmark indices scaled fresh peaks in intra-day trade helped by firm Asian market cues and rally in realty, IT, financials and metals stocks in anticipation of robust Q1 earnings and recovery in demand.

The BSE Sensex ended at a new closing peak of 53,159 levels, up 255 points or 0.48 per cent while the Nifty50 index shut shop at 15,924-mark, up 74 points or 0.47 per cent. Earlier in the day, the Sensex scaled a new lifetime of 53,266 and the Nifty touched 15,952.

In the 30-pack index, 17 stocks ended in the green with HCL Tech as the biggest gainer, up 5.10 per cent followed by L&T, Tech Mahindra and HDFC Bank that rose in the range of 1.5-4 per cent. On the other hand, Bharti Airtel, M&M, Asian Paints and Titan were the worst losers.

Sectorally, Nifty Realty index was the best performer, up 4.20 per cent followed by Nifty IT that added 1.29 per cent. Nifty Auto and Nifty PSU Bank were the worst laggards, down 0.30 per cent each.

The broader markets outperformed the benchmark as Nifty Smallcap 100 jumped 0.95 per cent while Nifty Midcap 100 added 0.48 per cent.

Going into trade on Friday, investors would react to Wipro's Q1 numbers in early trade while global cues, Fed Chair Jerome Powell's testimony and stock-specific action could also sway market mood.

On stock-specific front shares of Wipro added 2.52 per cent to Rs 575.75 ahead of its Q1 numbers. The IT major beat expectations when it posted a 35.65 per cent YoY rise in Q1 PAT at Rs 3,242.6 crore as against Rs 2,390 crore posted in the June quarter last year. Analysts were pencilling in a PAT growth of 14-19 per cent.

L&T Technology Services shares soared 19.08 per cent to Rs 3465.65 on the BSE after it reported an 84 per cent YoY and 11.1 per cent QoQ jump in its Q1FY22 net profit at Rs 216.2 crore, largely on widening margins. It had hit a new high of Rs 3492.25 in trade earlier.

Shares of Titan slipped 0.50 per cent after ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala further trimmed stake in the company by 0.25 per cent in the June quarter. Jhunjhunwala and his wife's stake stood at 4.8 per cent as of June 30, 2021.

Meanwhile, in the primary market, Zomato's Rs 9,300 crore initial public offer continued to garner strong interest from retail participants who bid for 4.5 times shares. The issue has been subscribed over 2x so far and closes tomorrow.

In other news,  Goldman Sachs expects an oil supply agreement between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to be a bullish catalyst for prices over the coming months as the U.S. investment bank maintained its summer Brent price forecast at $80 per barrel. Currently, oil was hovering 1.5 per cent down at $73.63.

Lastly, an update on the global market front.

A 0.7 per cent rise in Chinese shares was offset as Japan's Nikkei fell more than 1 per cent and London, Paris, Frankfurt and Wall Street futures all shuffled 0.1 per cent-0.8 per cent lower in early European moves as traders struggled with the rapid global rise in Covid-19 Delta variant cases.