The benchmark BSE Sensex was 508.06 points or 1.06 percent to 48,386.51 on Monday. The 50-stock NSE Nifty ended the day just shy of 14,500 mark. It was 1 percent higher or 143.65 points at 14,485.00.Nifty Realty index was the top sectoral gaine with over 4 percent followed by Nifty Metal, Nifty PSU Bank, Nifty FMCG and Nifty I. In the broader markets, smallcap and midcap indices supported the rally closing with strong gains.
Bank stocks were the major gainers. Axis Bank, JSW Steel, UltraTech Cement, ICICI Bank and Grasim Industries were the top Nifty50 gainers, while Cipla, Britannia Industries, HCL Technologies, BPCL and Sun Pharmaceuticals were the top index losers.
Private sector lender ICICI Bank’s share price soared 5.9 percent to hit an intra-day high of Rs 604.9 as investors reacted to the strong quarterly earnings growth. ICICI Bank said its net profit in the January-March quarter jumped 261 percent on-year basis and reached Rs 4,402 crore. Operating profit was up 15.6 percent from the same period last year.
Abhishek A Rastogi, Partner, Khaitan & Co., said there was growing concern over the number of new cases per day, which is alarmingly high in India. It was not expected to increase at such a pace, he said. “As there is an overall low confidence due to the pandemic, the yellow metal yet again touched 50,000. While it may show a sign of low confidence, the investment in gold a couple of months back at the right price would have given a desired return on investment“, he said.
Sumeet Bagadia, Executive Director, Choice Broking, said after a positive opening, the Index made an intraday high at 14557.50 level, but didn’t manage to sustain at a higher level and managed to close at 14485 with a gain of 143.65 points. The Bank Nifty closed at 32275.15 with a gain of 552.85 points. Among the sectoral indices, the Nifty Metal (+2 percent) and realty (2.8 percent) were the strongest gainer, while Nifty pharma ended in red. Stocks like ICICI Bank, JSW Steel, Axis Bank and Ultra Cemco were the market leaders for the day while HCL Tech, Cipla, Britannia and BPCL were the prime laggards.
In the technical front, the index has been trading with lower highs and lower lows formation and bounced from the lower bottom of the same, which is a bullish sign. Moreover, the index has given closing above 21&50 hourly moving averages, which suggests strength in the index. A momentum indicator stochastic has given a positive crossover which points to a bullish run in the counter. At present, the Nifty index has a support at 14,350 levels while an upside resistance comes at 14,800 levels, Bagadia said.
The markets took a breather from the downward movement it witnessed in the past week and moved up by around 1 percent today. Mohit Nigam, Head, PMS & Advisory, Hem Securities, said financials were the key drivers today leading the momentum after a decent result declared by ICICI Bank. "We feel that COVID-related developments in the next two weeks, corporate results and commentary are going to be very crucial to gauge the direction of the markets in the following months. 14,200 remains a key support on the downside," he added.
Shrikant Chouhan, Executive Vice President (Equity Technical Research), Kotak Securities said the intraday rally was largely supported by the banking, metal and realty stocks. Among sectors, realty gained the most and rallied over 3.5 percent, whereas, profit-booking was seen in pharma and select FMCG and IT stocks. Technically, the market has formed strong reversal formation near 14,400/ 48,100 levels, which is broadly positive, but the intraday charts suggest bulls may take caution stance near 14525/48478 levels, Chouhan said. The texture of the reversal pattern suggest further uptrend is not ruled out, if the index succeeds to trade above 14,535/48,500. . On the flip side, trading below 14,410 / 48,150 could possibly open one more leg of correction wave till 14,300/ 47,700 levels, he added.
World shares were mixed on Monday as worries over the pandemic clouded the outlook for a recovery from the coronavirus crisis. Tokyo and Paris advanced, while Frankfurt and London were almost unchanged. Benchmarks fell in Hong Kong and Shanghai and US futures were mixed.
