After the overnight crash, shares regained composure as the benchmark index Nifty posted modest gains on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) today on the back of buying in key banking and financial counters.
Reversing a two—session downtrend, the market rose amid intense volatility ahead of Sunday’s Assembly poll results from Maharashtra and Haryana, where exit polls have projected BJP emerging as the single largest party.
The 50—share index crossed the key 7,800 mark in intra —day trading during which the Nifty swung nearly 100 points.
Bouts of buying in other counters like infra, energy, pharma and auto along with shares of mid and small cap companies also supported the gains.
Key financial and PSU banks were on investor radar and they shot up between 2.13 per cent—2.50 per cent.
However, IT counters continued to get hammered, losing nearly 4 per cent following overnight announcement of lower—than expected Q2 results from India’s largest software services exporter TCS, which has also decided to merge its subsidiary CMC with itself.
Asian stocks closed mixed, while European stocks saw a strong opening.
The Nifty traded between a high of 7,819.20 and a low of 7,723.85 before ending at 7,779.70, showing a gain of 31.50 points, or 0.41 per cent.
Top five gainers were Zee 3.28 per cent, BHEL 3.26 per cent, HDFC Bank 3.07 per cent, ICICI Bank 3.06 per cent and Cipla 2.93 per cent.
Among draggers, HCL Tech lost 9.08 per cent, TCS 8.85 per cent, Sesa Sterlite 2.72 per cent, Jindal Steel 2.32 per cent and Hindalco 2.07 per cent.
Turnover in the cash segment eased to Rs 17,006.64 crore compared to Rs 17,399.64 crore yesterday. A total of 7,575.82 lakh shares changed hands in 71,72,816 trades, while market capitalisation stood at Rs 89,02,160 crore.
