Indian equity benchmarks bounced on Monday tracking gains in banking, financial services, metal and realty stocks. The Sensex rose as much as 790 points at the day’s highest level and Nifty 50 index moved above its important psychological level of 14,550. ICICI Bank was top mover in the Sensex, the stock rose as much as 6.24 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 605 after it reported strong March quarter earnings. Meanwhile, investors hoped that surging coronavirus cases could peak soon and mitigate the pandemic’s economic impact.
The Sensex ended 508 points or 1.06 per cent higher at 48,386.51 and Nifty 50 index advanced 144 points or 1 per cent to close at 14,485.
“The Nifty 50 index managed to hold above the support zone of 14,400. The technical factors are aligned to support a range-bound market movement. Therefore, the short-term traders can use the rally to exit while attempting to buy on dip approach,” Ashis Biswas, head of technical research at CapitalVia Global Research told NDTV.
All the 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange, barring the index of pharma shares, ended higher led by the Nifty Realty index’s nearly 4 per cent gain. Nifty Bank, Financial Services, Metal, PSU Bank and Private Bank indices also rose over 1 per cent each.
Mid- and small-cap shares also witnessed buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.8 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index climbed over a per cent.
ICICI Bank shares soared more than 6 per cent to top the gainer’s list on the BSE after the private sector bank reported a 260.5 per cent year-on-year (YoY) growth in standalone profit at Rs 4,402.61 crore for quarter ended March 2021. The profit in the corresponding period last year stood at Rs 1,221.4 crore.
Axis Bank, UltraTech Cement, JSW Steel, Grasim Industries, HDFC Life, State Bank of India, Hindustan Unilever, Power Grid, Eicher Motors, Tech Mahindra, SBI Life, Bajaj Auto and Reliance Industries also advanced between 2-3 per cent.
On the flipside, Cipla, Britannia Industries, HCL Technologies, BPCL, Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and Maruti Suzuki were among the laggards.