Sensex opens 91 points higher, Nifty above 16,550; Tata Steel, NTPC, UltraTech Cement gain

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The benchmark equity indices opened in the green on Tuesday following firm global cues. The 30-share Sensex kicked off the day at 55647.11, up 91.32 points against the previous close. Likewise, the 50-share Nifty index opened 64.95 points up at 16,561.

As many as 24 stocks in BSE Sensex pack traded in the green. With a rally of 1.58%, Tata Steel emerged as top gainer in the list. It was followed by UltraTech Cement (up 1.33%), NTPC (up 1.32%), Titan (0.86%) and HCL Technologies (up 0.73%). On the other hand, Maruti Suzuki, Asian Paints and HDFC were down over 0.40%.

Barring the BSE Bankex (down 0.02%), Auto (down 0.05%) and Finance (down 0.09%), other sectoral indices on the exchange traded in the green. The BSE Oil & Gas, Power, Utilities, Metal, Basic Materials and IT each were up over 0.50%.

Shares of infrastructure firms were buzzing in the early trade after finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a Rs 6 lakh crore National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) that will look to unlock value in infrastructure assets across sectors ranging from power to road and railways.

Chemplast Sanmar and Aptus Value Housing Finance India will make their stock market debut on bourses on August 24. Chemplast Sanmar will re-list on the stock market after being delisted from the exchanges nearly a decade ago. The Rs 3,850-crore IPO of Chemplast Sanmar was subscribed 2.17 times. While Aptus Value Housing Finance was subscribed 17.20 times.

The US markets ended higher on Monday on stronger-than-expected home sales data and full regulatory approval of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. Asian markets traded mostly in green on Tuesday on an extended bounce on Wall Street as investors drew comfort from full approval granted to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and on easing worries of an imminent tapering of stimulus by the Federal Reserve.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks snapped their two-day losing streak and ended the session in green terrain on Monday led by gains in Tech, IT and telecom stocks. The BSE Sensex rose 226.47 points or 0.41% to 55,555.79, while the Nifty index closed 45.95 points or 0.28% higher at 16,496.45.