Sensex climbs 600 pts, Nifty tops 17,250; RIL shares gain ahead of meet on biz demerger

Benchmark indices gained in Friday's session, tracking firm global peers, as dollar weakened further after German inflation data. Index heavyweights Reliance Industries and private lenders such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank gained, so did IT shares including Infosys, TCS and HCL Technologies, lifting the market mood.

Select defence stocks surged on order wins.

At 9.20 am, the BSE Sensex was trading 631.27 points, or 1.09 per cent, higher at 58,591.36. The NSE barometer Nifty was up 175.90 points, or 1.03 per cent, at 17,256.60.

Shares of Reliance Industries jumped 2.69 per cent to Rs 2,295.35. The creditors and shareholders of Reliance Industries will meet on May 2 to decide on demerger of financial services business.

HCL Technologies, ICICI Bank and Tech Mahindra advanced 2.53 per cent, 1.99 per cent and 1.96 per cent, respectively. Axis Bank, Power Grid, Nestle India and Tata Steel added 1.5-1-7 per cent. Asian Paints, Sun Pharma and ITC edged lower and were the only three Sensex stocks in the red.

Defence stocks hogged the limelight. Shares of Bharat Electronics jumped 6.28 per cent to Rs 97.24 after Ministry of Defence signed ten contracts worth Rs 5,498 crore with the company including the ones for Akash Missile System and defence weapon systems.

Bharat Dynamics surged 5.14 per cent to Rs 1,004.20 as the company received order for Akash Weapon Systems for a value of Rs 8,161 Crore. BDL also received an order of Rs 261 Crore for CMDS for MLH Helicopters.

Kalyan Jewellers fell 3.41 per cent to Rs 106.25 after Highdell Investment sold 26,208,636 equity shares in Kalyan Jewellers, representing 2.54 per centof the total issued and paid-up equity share capital of the company, through a bulk trade on the stock exchanges on March 28.

GR Infraprojects soared 6.54 per cent to 1033.40 after the company secured Letter of Acceptance for four projects worth Rs 3,700 crore.

Hero MotoCorp added 1 per cent to Rs 2325.60.The company board has appointed Niranjan Gupta as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, effective from May 1, 2023, elevating him from his current position as its CFO, Head - Strategy and M&A. 

Earlier today, Asian stocks advanced, with the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbing 1.17 per cent. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.77 per cent; China's Shanghai Composite advanced 0.38 per cent; Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.98 per cent and Korea's Kospi gained 1.06 per cent.

Morgan Stanley India has upgraded India's rating to equalweight, given narrowing valuation premiums and a resilient economy.  "We stay OW North Asia ex-Japan and UW on ASEAN. We stay OW IT and add to Discretionary, but further reduce Asia/EM Financials weight (preferring the sector in India and Indonesia, where we are OW)," Morgan Stanley said on March 29.

Investors globally were keenly awaiting PMI readings for March in coming days.

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