Welcome to ETMarkets Watch, the show about stocks, market trends and money-making ideas. I am Bhaskar Dutta and here are the top headlines at this hour.
>> Govt of India restores all valid visas
>> Banks in India may face headwinds: S&P
>> India UV market share to increase to 51-53%
>> Maruti eyes 5 lakh CNG vehicles in FY23
>> India boosts fertiliser imports from Canada
>> Biden to travel to Europe for Ukraine talks
Let us take a quick glance at what happened on Dalal Street today.
In line with their global peers, domestic equity markets enjoyed firm gains on Wednesday as progress in talks between Russia and Ukraine led to hopes of a resolution to the conflict.
A decline in crude oil prices, which only a few days ago had surged to 14-year highs, also strengthened the appetite for equities as concerns over higher domestic inflation eased.
Metals, FMCG, financials, banking and IT counters witnessed strong buying support, lifting the headline indices.
The rally in equities lifted investors’ wealth by a whopping Rs 4.6 lakh crore on Wednesday.
However, caution ahead of the US Fed’s policy statement scheduled late Wednesday limited gains. An aggressive rate hike path adopted by the Fed could reduce foreign investors’ appetite for Indian stocks.
The BSE Barometer gyrated in a range of 470 points with the Sensex ending the day more than 1,000 points higher at 56,816.65. The index has added on a whopping 3,392 points over the last 7 trading sessions.
Its broader peer, the Nifty50 ended above the 16,950 mark, gaining more than 310 points for the day. The index, which came close to the 17,000 mark, swung in a range of 150 points during the day.
Broader markets gained but not to the same extent as the headline index, with the BSE midcap index adding on 1.8 per cent while the smallcap index gained 1.5 per cent. Fear gauge India VIS slumped 10 per cent to end just above the 24 mark.
On the 30-pack BSE Sensex, only two stocks ended in the red. The gainers were led by Ultratech Cement which rose 5 per cent, followed by Axis Bank and IndusInd Bank which each rose more than 3.5 per cent.
HDFC Bank rose 3 per cent Infosys and Bajaj Finance rose 2.7 and 2.6 per cent, respectively. Bajaj Finserv and Tata Steel rose more than 2.5 per cent each while Tech Mahindra and ITC added on more than 2 per cent each.
Sun Pharma and PowerGrid were the only losers of the day, shedding 0.4 and 0.1 per cent, respectively.
As many as 18 stocks hit upper circuits during the session, whereas only 5 stocks tested their lower circuit limits. 34 stocks tested their 52-week highs during the session, whereas 19 hit 52-week lows.
We have Vaishali Parekh from Prabhudas Lilladher to share her views on the action and the road ahead:
Welcome to the show ma’am:
1. Benchmark indices notched up decent gains despite geopolitical uncertainty and major policy meetings. Is this a reflection of strong underlying fundamentals?
2. How will Indian equity markets react to a Fed rate hike? Which are the sectors to watch out for?
We also caught up with Aditya Agarwala of Yes Securities to decode the technical charts for you.
1. The Nifty50 settled above the 16,950 mark today. What do the technical charts suggest about it?
2. The rise in the Bank Nifty was in line with the headline index. What is your outlook?
Asian markets settled with decent gains for the day. Major European markets were trading sharply higher in the early hours of trade. Meanwhile, US stock futures were up, signalling a positive start to markets.
That’s all for now. Do check out ETMarkets.com for all the news, market analysis, investment strategies and dozens of stock recommendations. Enjoy your evening. Bye Bye!