Mumbai: Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty ratcheted higher on Friday, boosted by heavy buying in Infosys, banking and finance stocks amid a rally in global stock markets.
After soaring nearly 1,200 points intra-day, the 30-share BSE Sensex gave up some gains to close 684.64 points or 1.20 per cent higher at 57,919.97.
On similar lines, the broader NSE Nifty climbed 171.35 points or 1.01 per cent to end at 17,185.70.
Infosys topped the Sensex gainers’ chart, spurting 3.82 per cent, a day after the country’s second largest IT services firm posted a better-than-expected 11 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 6,021 crore for the September quarter and announced buyback of shares worth Rs 9,300 crore.
HDFC Bank, HDFC, HCL Technologies, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Bajaj Finance were among the other prominent winners.
In contrast, Mahindra & Mahindra, Asian Paints, Reliance Industries, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, PowerGrid and Maruti featured among the laggards, shedding up to 1.40 per cent.
“Due to profit-booking in the late afternoon session, Indian equity markets reduced some of their gains but kept trading in the green. Stocks in the banking and IT sectors saw purchasing activity,” said Mohit Nigam, Fund manager & Head – PMS, Hem Securities.
On the global market front, Asian equities ended in the green after US stocks pulled off an amazing reversal to close significantly higher overnight, Nigam added.
On a weekly basis, the Sensex shed 271.32 points or 0.46 per cent, while the Nifty fell 128.95 points or 0.74 per cent.
“Markets have been consolidating for the last two weeks amid mixed cues and we expect this to end soon. Meanwhile, participants should maintain their focus on sectors and stocks which are showing resilience despite the prevailing uncertainty and utilise this phase to accumulate them,” said Ajit Mishra, VP – Research, Religare Broking Ltd.
The broader market depicted a muted trend on Friday, with the BSE midcap gauge declining 0.13 per cent, while the smallcap index inched up 0.01 per cent.
Among BSE sectoral indices, IT jumped 1.72 per cent, bankex climbed 1.71 per cent, financial services 1.60 per cent and teck 1.56 per cent.
However, power declined 1.34 per cent, followed by (1.34 per cent), oil & gas (1 per cent) and realty (0.77 per cent).
The wholesale price-based inflation declined to an 18-month low of 10.7 per cent in September, as prices of food, fuel and manufactured items softened.
Although the wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation declined for the fourth consecutive month, it continued to remain in double digits for the 18th month since April 2021.
World markets rebounded from over two-year lows despite US core inflation coming in above forecasts, cementing expectations of further rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
In Asia, markets in Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong ended in the green.
Stock exchanges in Europe were trading in the positive territory in mid-session deals. Wall Street had ended significantly higher on Thursday.
International oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.81 per cent lower at USD 93.80 per barrel.
The rupee depreciated 8 paise to close at 82.32 (provisional) against the US dollar on Friday, as a firm American currency overseas and risk-averse sentiment among investors weighed on the local unit.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the Indian capital market on Friday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 1,011.23 crore, as per exchange data.
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