Sensex ends 303 points higher fuelled by Infosys, ICICI Bank; Nifty near 17950
Equity markets staged a firm turnaround intra-day to close Friday’s session with nominal gains powered by select index heavyweights such as Infosys, ICICI Bank, TCS and HUL, which gained over 1 per cent each.
Gradual easing in domestic and US retail inflation also aided sentiment and helped narrow the gap-down start. The BSE Sensex recovered 633 points from the day’s low and eventually ended 303 points higher at 60,261.
The NSE Nifty closed 98 points up at 17,957 level after bouncing back from the day’s lowest level of 17,774.
Other frontline stocks that supported the recovery included Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Ultratech Cement, Bajaj Finance, NTPC, Airtel, Adani Enterprises, Eicher Motors and BPCL, which gained 1-2 per cent.
On the flip side, top losers across the two benchmark indices included Titan, Nestle, ITC, L&T, Reliance and Apollo Hospitals.
The broader markets closed with slimmer gains. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices ended 0.09 and 0.2 per cent higher, respectively.
Within sectors, barring consumer durables, PSB and Metal indices on the Nifty logged in most gains, up over 1 per cent each, followed by IT and financial pockets.
Among stocks, HCL Tech firmly recovered the day’s losses and ended with a 0.4 per cent gain.
L&T Technology Services slumped 5.3 per cent on its plan to buy the smart world & communications business (SWC) from its parent L&T.
Banking stocks will be in the spotlight ahead of their Q3 earnings, particularly when the stock market is going through extreme volatility. HDFC Bank will declare its Q3FY23 results on Saturday, followed by Federal Bank on Monday.
Shares of Titan Company slipped 2 per cent to hit an over four-month low of Rs 2,401 on BSE in Friday’s intra-day trade as a sudden spike in gold prices raised concerns on demand for wedding jewellery going ahead into the March quarter (Q4FY23).
Kolte-Patil Developers rallied 12% on highest-ever quarterly sales in Q3. The management said that this growth was achieved on the back of firm realisations and highest-ever quarterly sales volumes, which improved 102 per cent QoQ and 31 per cent YoY.
Archean Chemical hit the highest level since debut; up 51% against issue price. The stock rallied 7% to hit a new high of Rs 612.70 in the intra-day trade today.
Rail Vikas gained 13% in 3 days on securing orders worth of Rs 1,173 crore. Shares of Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) rallied 5 per cent to Rs 79.35 on the BSE in Friday’s intra-day trade amid heavy volumes in an otherwise weak market.
Here are some picks from the week gone by.
