RIL, ICICI Bank, HDFC lift Sensex 166 pts; Nifty ends above 10,600 for 1st time since Feb 5

Markets - Image: Reuters

The broader indices today added more mass to their Monday’s gains as investors seemed to prefer the stable corporate earnings over rising crude oil prices. The 50-share NSE Nifty rose 29.70 points to 10,614.40 and the 31-share BSE Sensex gained 165.87 points to close at 34,616.64. Positive Asian and European cues also aided sentiment.

Reliance Industries was the biggest gainer among Nifty50 stocks, rising 3.6 per cent after Reliance Jio added 87.4 lakh subscribers in February compared to 83 lakh subscribers in previous month.

Besides RIL, index heavyweights HDFC and ICICI Bank helped the Nifty close above 10,600-mark for the first time since February 5, 2018, though the pressure in metals and technology stocks capped the upside.

International oil prices hit their highest levels since late 2014 due to expectations of renewed US sanctions against Iran and as OPEC continued withholding supplies amid strong demand. Brent crude futures were up 0.28 per cent at $74.92 a barrel and US crude futures were up 0.55 percent at $69.02 a barrel.

Experts expect the market to consolidate amidst the May 12 Karnataka elections and the ongoing corporate earnings season.

Manish Sonthalia, Head Equities— PMS, Motilal Oswal AMC, believes short-covering will drive the markets higher.

"The initial trends from corporate earnings look decent. It remains to be seen how the rest of them perform going forward," he said in an interview to CNBC-TV18, adding the market could hit new highs in the current fiscal.

Asian markets ended mostly higher despite the Dow and the Nasdaq falling amid a decline in tech shares. China's Shanghai Composite gained 2 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.3 per cent while Japan's Nikkei rose 0.9 per cent.

Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were up 0.3 per cent each at the time of writing this article.

The breadth of the domestic market was negative as mid-caps under-performed their larger peers.

The Nifty Midcap fell 0.06 per cent on weak. About 1,478 shares declined against 1,179 advancing shares on the BSE.

HDFC, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, L&T, Bajaj Finserv, M&M and GAIL gained up to 3.5 per cent.

The Nifty Metal and IT indices lost 2 per cent each on profit booking. The fall in global commodity prices also weighed on metals stocks. Hindalco and Nalco crashed 7 per cent each while Vedanta, Tata Steel, Hindustan Copper and SAIL fell up to 2.5 per cent.

Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra declined up to 3.5 per cent while TCS was down only 0.67 percent.

Reliance Capital, Reliance Communications, Reliance Naval, Coromandel International, Nalco, Kwality, Mishra Dhatu and Minda Corporation slipped up to 13 per cent. The companies from the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group stable suffered the brunt of a media report that said Reliance Naval’s auditors had raised doubts over the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.

Gati rallied 20 per cent ahead of its Thursday board meet to discuss the possibility of inducting a partner. Patel Integrated also rallied 20 per cent while TCI Express, ICICI Prudential, GNFC and Alembic Pharma gained up to 9 per cent.