Sensex rises over 200 points, Nifty tops 18,750; Gujarat Pipavav Port & MetroPolis jump up to 6%; ICICI Securities down 2%

Indian equity benchmarks rose in early deals on Tuesday, led by gains acrosss all sectors. The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 232 points or 0.37 per cent to trade at 63,202, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 68 points or 0.36 per cent higher to trade at 18,759. Mid- and small-cap shares were positive as Nifty Midcap 100 gained 0.48 per cent and the small-cap 100 was up 0.64 per cent.

On the global front, most Asian shares fell today. Overnight, Wall Street equities slipped due to a turmoil in Russia.

Back home, all 15 sector gauges -- compiled by the National Stock Exchange -- were trading in the green today. Sub-indexes Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Auto, Nifty IT and Nifty Metal were outperforming the NSE platform by rising as much as 0.47 per cent, 0.55 per cent, 0.44 per cent and 0.86 per cent, respectively.

"The market lacks momentum to take it convincingly to new highs. There is no support from the mother market US, either. So, investors should wait and watch for clearer direction from the market. Early next month expectations regarding Q1 FY24 results will influence the market. Investors may wait for cues from the results to know which sectors will outperform for the rest of the year," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Sensex closed flat on Monday, while the midcap index saw sharp gains, lifted by domestic buying. Sensex had shed 9 points or 0.01 per cent to close at 62,970; while Nifty had moved 26 points or 0.14 per cent higher to settle at 18,691.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold a net Rs 409 crore worth of Indian equities in the previous session, while domestic investors bought Rs 250 crore of shares, as per provisional NSE data.

On the stock-specific front, HDFC Life was the top Nifty gainer as the stock jumped 3.04 per cent to trade at Rs 649.40. Also, Bajaj Auto, Apollo Hospitals, Tata Steel and Adani Enterprises climbed up to 1.13 per cent.

In contrast, Cipla, Titan, UPL, IndusInd Bank and Dr Reddy's slipped up to 1.17 per cent.

The overall market breadth was strong as 1,976 shares were advancing while 691 were declining on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, Infosys, HDFC twins (HDFC and HDFC Bank), Reliance Industries, L&T, Bharti Airtel and Axis Bank were among the top gainers.

In addition, Gujarat Pipavav Port, MetroPolis Healthcare, VGuard Industries and Macrotech Developers (Lodha) jumped up to 5.97 per cent.

On the flip side, ICICI Securities, Supreme Petrochem, Eclerx Services and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders slipped up to 2.27 per cent.

Nifty outlook

 

"Nifty with the overall trend still maintained positive, has managed to hold on near the crucial support zone of the 20EMA level of 18,650 zone and has closed marginally in the green with the broader markets once again indicating a strong pullback to improve the bias and sentiment. As said earlier, with a decisive move past the 18,800 zone would once again bring hopes for breaching the new high levels and carry on the momentum still further ahead for fresh upside targets. The support for the day is seen at 18,600 levels while the resistance is seen at 18,850 levels," said Vaishali Parekh, Vice-President - Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher.

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