Sensex Rallies 1100 Pts, Nifty Near 16600, Indices Defy Russia-Ukraine War; Nykaa, Paytm Up

Domestic equity market benchmarks BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 were set to start in green on Friday, as suggested by trends on SGX Nifty in early trade. Nifty futures were trading 220 points or 1.35 per cent higher at 16470 on Singaporean Exchange.

In the previous session, headline indices crashed nearly 5% after the Russia attacked Ukraine. BSE Sensex tumbled 4.7 per cent or 2,702 points to end at 54,530, while Nifty 50 index plunged 815 points or 4.8 per cent to finish trade at 16248.

Shrugging off the Russia-Ukraine concerns, Asian stock markets were seen trading with gains. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.62%, while the Topix gained 0.84%. The international benchmark Brent crude increased 2.77% to $101.82. US stock indices witnessed a roller-coaster trade overnight. The S&P 500 gained 1.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average erased a 859-point drop to advance 92.07 points. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite rose 3.3%.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the market mayhem that followed have raised fresh concerns over the mega initial public offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation.

A senior government official, however, told FE on Thursday that the issue would hit the market in March as scheduled, since the “life insurance business is largely insulated from commodity markets turmoil”. On Wednesday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, too, had said the government was going ahead with the IPO plan, but added, “we are equally worried if the market situation is conducive”.