Indices gain for 6th day as financials zoom; Sensex ends 354 points higher

The bulls continued to dominate markets on Friday, thanks to a healthy buying in financial counters. The S&P BSE Sensex gained for the sixth consecutive session to settle at 39,467 levels, up 354 points, or 0.9 per cent.

NSE’s Nifty ended at 11,648, up 88 points or 0.76 per cent. Volatility index, India VIX, continued to decline and ended at 18.24 levels, down nearly 3.5 per cent.

Sun Pharma surges 4%, hits 52-week high; stock rallies 76% from March-low. For the quarter ended June 2020, Sun Pharma had reported a surprise loss due to one-time charges. The company’s US business posted a 33.5 per cent decline during the quarter, while India sales were up 3.2 per cent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis. Consolidated sales from operations at Rs 7,467 crore, a decline of about 9.6 per cent over the same quarter last year.

Shares of Edelweiss Financial Services rose as much as 3.16 per cent to Rs 86.50 on the BSE on Friday after Hong-Kong based private equity group PAG picked up 51 per cent stake in Edelweiss Wealth Management (EWM) for Rs 2,200 crore. The Edelweiss Group runs corporate and retail credit, wealth management, asset management and life and general insurance businesses.

HCC sinks 16% from day’s high on Rs 406 crore consolidated net loss in Q1. The shares had fallen 10 per cent in the morning deals today to hit a high of Rs 7.4 apiece, translating into an intra-day fall of 16.2 per cent. A combined 24.92 million shares had changed hands on the counter on the NSE and BSE till the time of writing of this report.

Vodafone Idea surges 17%, Bharti Airtel up 2% as telecom stocks rallied. The S&P BSE Telecom index, up 3.44 per cent, was the top sectoral gainer at 11:30 AM. In comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was trading 0.8 per cent higher. Among other individual stocks, Bharti Infratel rose 6.75 per cent to Rs 213.35 while Bharti Airtel gained 2.86 per cent to Rs 525.65. Reliance Industries, meanwhile, was trading 0.9 per cent higher at Rs 2,131.

Repco Home Finance freezes at 5% upper circuit; zooms 35% in 10 sessions. So far, in the month of August, the stock has rallied 22 per cent on the BSE, as against 1.6 per cent gain in the S&P BSE Sensex. The stock has surged 35 per cent alone in the last 10 trading sessions, as against 2.7 per cent rise in the Sensex.

GMR Infra zoomed 10% on a proposal to list airport business but pares gains later. The shares advanced 10 per cent and hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 28.25, in the early morning deals, on the BSE on Friday after the company decided to separately list its airport business. The company’s board on Thursday passed a proposal that will see the holding company, GMR Infrastructure, demerge into airport and non-airport entities.

Here are some picks from the week gone by.