After soaring to new all-time highs in early trades on Tuesday, Indian benchmark indices S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 pared gains and briefly fell into the red around late morning, but recovered to post fresh closing highs after volatile swings.
Stocks climbed higher on sustained inflow of foreign funds, and a positive lead from Wall Street where stocks closed higher on Monday amid expectations the Fed is nearing the end of its tightening cycle.
The Sensex, which dropped to 66,574.47 after surging to 67,007.02, ended the session with a gain of 205.21 points or 0.31% at 66,795.14. The Nifty50 ended with a gain of 37.80 points or 0.19% at 19,749.25, after hitting a new intraday high of 19,819.45.
IT bellwether Infosys, up 3.67%, contributed significantly to market’s positive close. The stock rallied after the company said it has won a contract from a “strategic” client to provide AI and automation services over five years, entailing a targeted spending of $2 billion.
Heavyweight stock Reliance Industries gained nearly 1%. Asian Paints climbed 1.5% and HCL Technologies gained about 1.2%. ICICI Bank, Wipro, NTPC, Hero Motocorp, Tata Consumer Products, and Tech Mahindra posted modest gains.
State Bank of India ended lower by about 1.4%. Bajaj Finance, Titan, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Tata Steel also lost more than 1%. Tata Motors, UltraTech Cement and JSW Steel ended down 0.8 to 1%.
LTI MindTree Limited shares dropped 2.6% despite the company reporting a modest 4% year-on-year increase in consolidated earnings in the April – June quarter.
HDFC Life, Britannia Industries, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises, Divi’s Laboratories and Coal India also ended notably lower.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance ended 1.3% down. The insurer reported standalone net profit of Rs 207 crore for the first quarter ended June, up 33% compared to the year-ago quarter.
The market breadth was weak. On BSE, 2,011 stocks ended lower, and 1,413 stocks moved up, while 124 stocks settled flat.
Market Analysis
Sensex, Nifty Shrug Off Mid Session Setback, Close At New Record Highs
2023-07-18 10:46:39
