Mumbai– After a largely volatile trade, healthy quarterly earnings results along with fresh influx of foreign funds and expectations of a dovish monetary policy aided the key Indian equity indices to pare their initial losses and end Tuesday’s trade session on a record high.
Besides, appreciation in the Indian rupee also supported gains in the indices, analysts said.
However, the day’s trade session was volatile ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy review on Wednesday.
Index-wise, the wider Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange settled at 11,356.50 points, higher by 36.95 points and 0.33 per cent from its previous close.
It touched a fresh high of 11,366 points during the intra-day trade.
The S&P BSE Sensex, which had opened at 37,534.95 points, closed at 37,606.58 points, higher by 112.18 points or 0.30 from its previous close of 37,494.40 points.
The barometer touched a record intra-day high of 37,644.59 points and a low of 37,298.75.
“Caution ahead of tomorrow’s RBI and US Fed policy led the indices to start on a weak note. However, strength in earnings supported the market to reverse from day’s low and ended up with a gain,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities, said: “Markets continued to surge higher on Tuesday to close at yet another new lifetime high. This was the eight consecutive up closing for the Nifty.
“The gains came on the back of up-moves in index heavyweights Reliance Industries, Hindustan Unilever and Infosys as investors focussed on the RBI’s bi-monthly policy meeting that will end on Wednesday.”
In a major development, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Tuesday surpassed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in terms of market capitalisation (market-cap) in India.
At closing, the market-cap of Reliance Industries on the BSE stood at around Rs 7.51 lakh crore, against the Rs 7.43 lakh crore worth of market-cap of Tata Consultancy Services.
The rise in market-cap of the RIL came on the back of healthy results for the June-ended quarter, analysts said.
The share price of RIL on BSE settled at Rs 1,185.85 on Tuesday, higher by 36.15 points or 3.14 per cent from its previous close.
On the currency front, the rupee closed at 68.55, appreciating by 13 paise from the previous close of 68.68 per dollar.
Investment-wise, provisional data with exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors bought scrip worth Rs 572.21 crore and the domestic institutional investors sold stocks worth Rs 290.87 crore.
Sector-wise, the S&P BSE consumer durables index gained the most, by 209.82 points, followed by the capital goods index, which rose by 171.30 points and the IT index, up 116.18 points.
On the contrary, S&P BSE banking index fell by 138.18 points, the finance index fell 33.38 points, utilities index was marginally down, by 0.87 points.
The major gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp, up 2.77 per cent at Rs 3,293.80; Hindustan Unilever, up 2.52 per cent at Rs 1,731.60; Adani Ports, up 2.41 per cent at Rs 400.10; and Bharti Airtel, up 1.97 per cent at Rs 390.70 per share.
The major losers were Axis Bank, down 3.23 per cent at Rs 550.10; Tata Motors (DVR), down 2.04 per cent at Rs 144.20; HDFC, down 1.64 per cent at Rs 1,994.75; State Bank of India, down 1.33 per cent at Rs 293.40; and ITC, down 1.30 at Rs 297.20 per share. (IANS)
