Rupee recovery, value buying buoy equity indices

Mumbai: A recovery in the rupee value after the government said it will take steps to support the currency along with value buying buoyed the key Indian equity indices on Wednesday.

Further, reports said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may hold a meeting this weekend to take stock of the country’s economy boosted investor sentiment in the last couple of trading hours when the indices made major gains of the day.

The key equity indices — S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty50 — which had a gap-up opening, traded in a flat-to-negative range before the mid-afternoon session as investors were cautious over the upcoming macro-economic inflationary data point.

However, the indices reversed the bearish trend during the last few hours as healthy buying was witnessed in FMCG, metal and capital goods counters. In the past two trade sessions, the Sensex had shed nearly 1,000 points, giving investors an opportunity to pick up stocks on an attractive valuations.

Index-wise, the Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed at 11,369.90 points, higher by 82.40 points or 0.73 per cent from its previous close of 11,287.50 points.

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, which had opened at 37,546.42 points, closed at 37,717.96 points, higher by 304.83 points or 0.81 per cent from the previous close of 37,413.13 points. It touched an intra-day high of 37,752.58 points and a low of 37,342.00 points.

In the broader markets, the S&P BSE Mid-cap rose by 0.52 per cent and the S&P BSE Small-cap ended 0.27 per cent lower from its previous close.

The BSE market breadth was bearish with 1,545 declines against 1,121 advances. The total number of stocks traded on the exchange was 2,844, with 178 ending unchanged.

On the currency front, the Indian rupee closed at 72.19 recovering 50 paise from its previous close of 72.69 per greenback.

Investment-wise, provisional data with exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors sold scrips worth Rs 1,086.39 crore and domestic institutional investors bought stocks worth Rs 541.44 crore.

Sector-wise, the S&P BSE FMCG index gained the most, by 281.50 points, metal index gained 206.58 and capital goods was up by 192.76 points.

Of the 19 sectoral indices on the BSE, only three indices ended in the red — telecom index, which lost 8.68 points, the realty index, declined 6.94 points and the banking index slipped 5.90 points from its previous close.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Power Grid, up 3.40 per cent at Rs 193.20; ITC, up 3.11 per cent at Rs 306.50; Sun Pharma, up 2.98 per cent at Rs 649.85; Adani Ports, up 2.96 per cent at Rs 375.50; and Hindustan Unilever, up 2.29 per cent at Rs 1,627.95 per share.

The major losers were Axis Bank, down 2.30 per cent at Rs 635.55; Tata Motors, down 1.70 per cent at Rs 262.65; Bharti Airtel, down 1.28 per cent at Rs 375; ICICI Bank, down 1.07 per cent at Rs 323.10; and Yes Bank, down 0.71 per cent at Rs 314.45 per share. (IANS)