RBI’s dovish policy gives Sensex 381-points boost; RIL up 4%, IT stocks shine

The RBI’s seemingly dovish policy, with repo and reverse repo rates unchanged at 4 per cent and 3.35 per cent, respectively, bolstered bull sentiment on Dalal Street on Friday. The central bank also retained the GDP growth forecast at 9.5 per cent for the on-going fiscal year and revised CPI inflation projection downward to 5.3 per cent for the whole fiscal (from 5.7 per cent) which further supported the sentiment.

Overall, the frontline S&P BSE Sensex closed the session at 60,059 levels, up 381 points, while the Nifty50 ended at 17,895 levels, up 105 points.

Reliance Industries, which hit a record high of Rs 2,684 apiece in the intra-day trade, settled nearly 4 per cent higher and contributed nearly 2/3rd towards Sensex’s gains today. Other contributors included Infosys, TCS, L&T, HCL Tech, and ICICI Bank.

In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index ended 0.15 per cent higher and the BSE SmallCap index added 0.92 per cent. Both the indices hit a record high of 25,956 and 29,358, respectively, earlier today.

Shares of Tata Consultancy Services hit a new high at Rs 3,990, up 2.5 per cent on the BSE in Friday’s intra-day trade, and has now gained 5 per cent in the last two trading sessions, ahead of its July-September quarter (Q2FY22) results. The information technology (IT) will announce last quarter results late in the evening today. The stock surpassed its previous high of Rs 3,981.55 touched on September 16, 2021.

Shares of Piramal Enterprises were down 5 per cent to Rs 2,727.80 on the BSE in Friday’s intra-day trade on profit booking after the company’s board approved the demerger of the pharmaceuticals business and simplification of the corporate structure. With today’s fall, the stock has declined 9.5 per cent from its record high level of Rs 3,013 touched in Thursday’s intra-day trade.

Hotel stocks rallied up to 8 per cent on the bourses in Friday’s intra-day trade as the Indian hotel industry is reporting a consistent and rapid recovery in occupancies after a dull period amid the second wave of Covid-19. Further, a recovery in the business travel and permitting foreign tourist to travel in India would further give a boost to the occupancies in the quarters ahead, analysts say.

Mandhana Retail tumbled 7% as big bull Rakesh Jhunjhunwala partially pared his stake. He sold 8.52 lakh shares in the company via open market transactions during October 5-7, reducing shareholding to 2.40 per cent from 6.26 per cent earlier.

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