Sensex Surges Over 500 Points Amid Positive Global Cues, Nifty Trades Above 16,750

Indian equity benchmarks on Thursday traded higher in opening deals, taking cues from their Asian peers. Trends on the Nifty Futures on Singapore Exchange (SGX Nifty) indicated a gap-up start for the domestic indices.

Stocks in Asia made cautious gains as investors scented a possible slowdown in the pace of U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.

Fed raised rates by 75 basis points (bps), but its chair Jerome Powell dropped guidance on the size of the next rate hike and noted that “at some point,” it would be appropriate to slow down.

Back home, the 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 525 points or 0.94 per cent to 56,342 in the early trade, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 140 points or 0.84 per cent higher to trade at 16,782.

Mid- and small-cap shares were positive as Nifty Midcap 100 rose 0.37 per cent and small-cap climbed 0.55 per cent.

Nine out of the 15 sector gauges — compiled by the National Stock Exchange — were trading in the green. Sub-indexes Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services and Nifty IT were outperforming the NSE platform by rising as much as 1.03 per cent, 1.26 per cent and 1.37 per cent, respectively.

On the stock-specific front, Bajaj Finance was the top Nifty gainer as the stock soared 5.43 per cent to ₹ 6,743.45. Bajaj Finserv, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel and Infosys were also among the gainers.

The overall market breadth was strong as 1,684 shares were advancing while 732 were declining on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, Infosys, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Axis Bank, HDFC twins (HDFC and HDFC Bank), HCL Technologies, TCS and SBI were among the top gainers.

Also, shares of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the country’s biggest insurer and largest domestic financial investor, rose 0.56 per cent to trade at ₹ 678.25.

In contrast, Dr Reddy’s, Sun Pharma, Bharti Airtel, ITC, Nestle India, UltraTech Cement and NTPC were trading in the red.

Further, shares of budget airline SpiceJet fell as much as 9.3 per cent after the aviation regulator DGCA ordered the carrier to slash its approved fleet to 50 per cent this summer for eight weeks, citing multiple safety snags.

Sensex had surged 548 points or 0.99 per cent to close at 55,816 on Wednesday, while Nifty had moved 158 points or 0.96 per cent higher to settle at 16,642.