India : Sensex snaps 5-day fall, gains 185 pts on global relief rally

Equity benchmarks started off the week on a strong note Monday, tracking relief rally in global peers after a clean chit to US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in email probe. However, there was some profit booking in late trade as investors still maintained cautious stance ahead of US elections, scheduled for November 8.The 30-share BSE Sensex snapped five-day losing streak, rising 184.84 points to close at 27458.99. It surged more than 300 points intraday.

The 50-share NSE Nifty failed to hold 8500 level due to late profit booking. The index climbed 63.30 points to 8497.05 at close.

With the US Presidential election in its final lap, Jayant Manglik of Religare Securities suggests keeping a close watch on global developments.

At the same time, traders should limit their leveraged trades, considering the possibility of excessive choppiness in near future, he says.

Manish Singh of Crossbridge Capital says the election outcome is uncertain as of now, but Democratic party candidate Hillary Clinton has the upper hand.

The broader markets also closed off day’s high as the BSE Midcap index was up 0.6 percent on positive breadth. About 1994 shares advanced against 880 declining shares on the BSE at the end. In morning, the advance:decline ratio was 5:1.

European bourses were higher as confidence grew over a Hillary Clinton victory in the US presidential elections. France’s CAC, Germany’s DAX and Britain’s FTSE were up 1.4-1.8 percent, at the time of writing this copy. Asia also ended higher with Japan’s Nikkei rising 1.6 percent after the Federal Bureau of Investigation again cleared presidential candidate Hillary Clinton of potential criminal charges in its private email server probe.

Back home, all sectoral indices closed in the green with Nifty PSU Bank index gaining the most, up nearly 4 percent. Punjab National Bank surged 6.6 percent on better-than-expected profit figure and improvement in asset quality in Q2. State Bank of India also followed the same trend, up nearly 4 percent as it is going to announce quarterly earnings on Friday this week.

Lupin was the biggest gainer among bluechips, up close to 7 percent after US Food and Drug Administration has cleared company’s Goa facility, leading to the closure of all outstanding USFDA inspections of this facility.

ICICI Bank gained more than 3 percent ahead of quarterly earnings later today.

Tata Motors lost nearly a percent. JLR’s retail sales in October grew by 11 percent year-on-year to 46,325 units, driven by Jaguar that showed 93 percent growth while Land Rover reported a 6 percent degrowth. China sales increased 39 percent followed by Europe (25 percent growth), UK & North America (8 percent each).

ITC was the leading contributor to Sensex’s gains, up 3 percent. BHEL also gained 3 percent ahead of quarterly earnings on Tuesday.

Hindalco Industries and Aurobindo Pharma were among the top three gainers on the Nifty 50, up more than 5 percent whereas TCS, L&T and HUL dropped 1-3 percent.