Equity benchmark indices edged higher during early hours on Monday due to heavy buying in banking, financial and metal stocks. At 10.15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 515 points or 1.5 per cent at 34,802 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 145 points or 1.43 per cent at 10,287.
Except for Nifty pharma, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the green with Nifty private bank up by 2.8 per cent, financial service by 2 per cent and metal by 1.6 per cent.
Among stocks, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) gained 1.1 per cent to Rs 1,598 per share on fresh investment of Rs 5,683 crore by Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in its digital arm Jio Platforms. It gained 2.74 per cent to touch a one-year high of Rs 1,624 on BSE. On NSE, it rose 2.32 per cent to Rs 1,618.4— its 52-week high. Reliance Industries said it sold 1.16 per cent stake in Jio Platforms to ADIA for Rs 5,683.50 crore, taking the cumulative fund raising to Rs 97,885.65 crore that will help pare debt at the oil-to-telecom conglomerate. With this investment, Jio Platforms has raised Rs 97,885.65 crore from leading global investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala and ADIA in less than seven weeks.
Private lender IndusInd Bank gained by 6.4 per cent at Rs 449.40 per share while Axis Bank was up by 4.9 per cent, ICICI Bank by 3.8 per cent, Bajaj Finance by 4.8 per cent and Bajaj Finserv by 3.8 per cent.
Tata Steel was up by 1 per cent to Rs 342.85 per cent. IndianOil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, GAIL, Tata Motors and Titan too witnessed gains of over 4 per cent each. However, pharma stocks lost. Dr Reddy's was down by 1.5 per cent and Cipla by 1.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, Asian share prices ticked up after a surprise recovery in US employment provided cause for optimism. Investors hoped that global economies will quickly revive after many weeks of lockdown aimed at controlling the coronavirus pandemic.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan rose by 0.3 per cent, extending its bull run to an eighth consecutive day. Japan's Nikkei was up by 1.13 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng by 0.17 per cent.
