Sensex, Nifty Close On Upbeat Note As Stocks Rally On Earnings

The Indian market closed on a buoyant note on Thursday as investors shrugged off concerns about slowing growth, fears over interest rate hikes and geopolitical tensions, and kept picking up stocks, reacting to a slew of strong earnings updates.

Steady Asian and European markets, hectic buying in heavyweight Reliance Industries and HUL’s upbeat results contributed significantly to the Indian market’s sharp rise today.

The benchmark BSE Sensex, which opened with a positive gap of nearly 480 points at 57,296.31, soared to 57,790.85 before finally settling at 57,521.06 with an impressive gain of 701.67 points or 1.23%.

The National Stock Exchange’s Nifty index ended with a gain of 206.65 points or 1.21% at 17,245.05, after scaling a high of 17,322.50.

Shares from FMCG, capital goods, bank, power, oil, technology and utilities sectors posted strong gains. Metal, automobile, healthcare and realty stocks turned in a mixed performance.

FMCG giant Hindustan Unilever rallied 4.55% on encouraging results. Hindustan Unilever’s consolidated net profit for the fourth quarter came in at Rs 2,307 crore, which was up 5.3% compared to its net profit in the corresponding quarter a year earlier.

Asian Paints surged up 3.2%. Power Grid Corporation, NTPC, Larsen & Toubro and State Bank of India gained 2 to 2.8%. Infosys moved up nearly 2%.

Axis Bank, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Reliance Industries, ITC, ICICI Bank, Kotak Bnak, IndusInd Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Tata Steel and Bajaj Finserv also ended notably higher.

HDFC Life, SBI Life, UPL, Coal India and Tata Consumer Products moved up as well.

Bajaj Auto drifted down nearly 2% after reporting a drop in earnings. Bajaj Auto reported consolidated net profit of Rs 1,526 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2022, down 2% from a year ago.

Bharti Airtel, Hindalco, Mahindra & Mahindra and HCL Technologies closed weak.

Indian Hotels rallied 5% after reporting a net profit of Rs 71.57 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2022, as against net loss of Rs 97.72 crore in the year-ago quarter.