After a 5-day losing streak, the BSE Sensex and the Nifty opened sharply higher on Friday. The Sensex was up 378 points or 0.81 percent at 47,252.59 at 9:19 am, while at 13,959.15. the NSE benchmark Nifty50 index was higher by 141.60 points or 1.02 percent. The overnight turnaround in US equities and the coverage of short positions due to the expiry of January series futures & options contracts resulted in purchases in the market, traders say. Also, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will table the Economic Survey in the Parliament today at 12 pm.
Most of the other stock indices, with the exception of pharmaceuticals, were in positive territory today. IndusInd Bank was the top winner among Nifty shares, up 3.11%, followed by Tata Motors and BPCL, which gained 2.98% and 2.26% respectively. The other prominent sectors were M&M, ONGC, Adani Ports, HDFC Bank, BPCL, Bajaj Finance, L&T, UPL, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Asian Paints, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Hero MotoCorp, Reliance Industries
Axis Bank was the top loser in the Nifty, down 1.55% followed by Shree Cements and Maruti Suzuki, which fell 0.68% and 1.05% respectively. UltraTech Cement, JSW Steel, Gail, Britannia, Divis labsGrasim, HUL, Tech Mahindra were among the other losers in the Nifty.
On Thursday, the Sensex closed 535.57 points or 1.13% lower at 46,874.36, and the Nifty settled 150 points or 1.07% down at 13,817.50. Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPI) sold Indian equities worth Rs 3,713 crore in the cash segment on a provisional basis on Thursday and bought shares worth Rs 5,091 crore in the futures & options segment. They increased their net long position in index futures to 62% as compared to 59% on the previous day. That’s below the January average of 71%. Domestic institutions bought Indian equities worth Rs 1,737 crore in the cash market.
Global markets
Today, other Asian shares were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei dropped 1.12 percent; Shanghai Composite rose 0.23 percent; Taiwan Weighted dropped 0.44 percent; while the indices of Hang Seng and Kospi were flat and 1.99 percent down. US stocks finished higher overnight. The Dow Jones finished 0.99% higher, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were 0.98% and 0.50% higher, respectively.
