India : Sensex ends above 29000, up 119 pts; Midcap at new closing high
Equity benchmarks on Thursday jumped to the highest closing level in last 18 months on continued liquidity support, driven by FMCG, healthcare, oil and auto stocks. However, sell-off in technology stocks due to TCS’ warning limited the upside. The market gained strength in last couple of hours of trade after a consolidation that had been since yesterday.
The 30-share BSE Sensex ended above 29,000 level for the first time since April 13, 2015. The index was up 118.92 points at 29,045.28.
The 50-share NSE Nifty rose 34.55 points to fresh 18-month closing high of 8,952.50.
The Nifty Midcap continued to outperform benchmarks, rising 0.74 percent to end at record closing high.
Market experts expect the Nifty at 9,000 level soon once IT sector’s downside is over.
“Option activity continued to extend to higher strike suggesting that traders continue to remain bullish and are not deterred by the approach of record peaks,” Anand James, of Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services said.
Foreign institutional investors continued to pump in money into Indian equities, buying more than Rs 800 crore worth of shares Wednesday on top of Rs 1,393 crore inflow Tuesday, especially after US economic data diminished chances of a September Fed rate hike.
IT stocks were the biggest laggard with Nifty IT index ending at 25-month low, down 2.5 percent after TCS revised BFSI outlook. The country’s largest IT company said there could be sequential loss of momentum and holding back of discretionary spending in BFSI vertical in the US. The stock lost 5.14 percent while Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro were down over 1.6 percent.
The Nifty Bank index managed to end in the green as SBI, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank rose 0.3-0.6 percent whereas ICICI Bank fell 0.6 percent.
Sun Pharma, Maruti Suzuki, Lupin, Bajaj Auto, HUL, Hero Motocorp, Cipla and Tata Steel were biggest gainers on the Sensex, up 2-3.7 percent. ITC and Reliance Industries gained 1.4 percent each.
GAIL lost 2 percent while ONGC gained half a percent, reacting to quarterly earnings announced later yesterday.
In the broader space, IRB Infrastructure surged 9 percent after its subsidiary IRB InvIT Fund has filed draft red herring prospectus with SEBI for its Rs 4,300 crore IPO .
Aptech was locked at 10 percent upper circuit after promoter Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and other persons acting in his concert raised stake in the company to 49.30 percent .
The market breadth was positive as about 1600 shares advanced against 1153 declining shares on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
European markets were mixed ahead of latest monetary policy meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB). Asia were also mixed at close.
