Sensex rallies 397 points; Nifty ends above 15,800; banks, financials gain

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Indian benchmark equity indices settled higher on Tuesday led by gains in banks, financial and pharma stocks amid a positive trend in global equities. Sensex settled 397 points or 0.76% higher at 52,769, while the Nifty 50 added 119 points or 0.76% to end at 15,812.

“Following favourable economic outcome and positive Asian markets, domestic bourses traded positive today. Asian shares sparked a rally after better-than-expected Chinese economic data and a bounce back in Chinese tech stocks. Though June CPI inflation continued to remain above RBI’s tolerance level, it eased to 6.26% from 6.30% in the previous month giving some relief to the market. Industrial production (IIP) for May grew 29.3% YoY essentially due to a lower base,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

Gainers & losers

Sectoral strand

Nifty Financial Services, closing 1.48% higher, was the top sectoral gainer on the NSE followed by Nifty Private Bank and Nifty Bank up around 1.35% each.  Nifty Pharma, Nifty Auto and Nifty Metal gained 0.55-0.65%, while the Nifty Realty index was up 0.38%.

Nifty IT and Nifty FMCG lost 0.32% and 0.18% respectively.

Broader markets

Despite benchmark indices closing near day’s high, some pressure was visible in the broader markets with the BSE MidCap index ended flat with a positive bias of 0.01% at 22,906. Whereas the BSE SmallCap index settled with gains of 0.46% at 26,188 after hitting a fresh lifetime high of 26,263.

The market breadth favoured the bulls as 1,053 stocks advanced versus 885 scrips declining and 331 shares remained unchanged.

Global markets

Most European shares declined at the opening bell. Most Asian stocks advanced on Tuesday, 13 July 2021, as investors reacted to the release of China’s trade data for June which showed exports jumped 32.2% compared with a year earlier.

Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Monday, with the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 hitting record highs as investors awaited the start of the second-quarter earnings season and a batch of economic data to gauge the next leg of the equity market.

Investors appeared cautiously optimistic ahead of the start of second-quarter earnings reports. Investors also anticipate important data to be released this week, including key readings on inflation on Tuesday and Wednesday, and June 2021 retail sales on Friday.

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is set to testify before Congress on Wednesday and Thursday, and investors will be looking for any signals of fiscal policy updates.