At close, Sensex was up a little over 50 points at 82,276. This marks a fall of around 682 points from its intraday high of 82,958, which it had hit in the morning amid strong buying in IT stocks. Nifty 50 ended the session around 58 points higher at 25,482, after falling over 170 points from its day’s high of 25,653.
Today’s gains were led by metals, with the Nifty Metal index rising 2.7%. IT stocks, which had surged sharply in the morning, also pared partial gains by the end of the session.
The Nifty IT index closed 1.57% higher, while the auto and pharma indices gained 1.85% each. FMCG, PSU Banks, realty, along with oil & gas indices, however, closed in the red.
Top gainers and losers
HCLTech shares were the top gainers on Sensex, rising nearly 3%. Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), IndiGo, Sun Pharma and Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) followed, rising around 2% each.
Heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) led losses, falling more than 2% and dragging down the index sharply. State Bank of India (SBI), Adani Ports, Zomato-parent Eternal and others followed.
Notably, today’s rise comes a day after the stock markets crashed, led by a selloff in IT shares. Broader markets also closed in the green today, with Nifty Smallcap 100 and Nifty Midcap 100 index rising 0.94% and 0.58% respectively.
Global markets
Indian stock markets have accompanied global peers in gains today. South Korea’s Kospi gained nearly 2%, while Japan’s Nikkei was up more than 2%. Hang Seng gained 0.66%, and China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.72%.
In Europe, UK’s FTSE 100 rose around 1%, while France’s CAC and Germany’s DAX gained nearly 0.4% and 0.35%, respectively, as seen at 3.50 pm.
Currency Watch
Rupee ended almost flat against the US dollar on Wednesday. The Indian currency closed at $90.9475 against the dollar, nearly unchanged from its previous closing price of $90.95. This came as the dollar index also remained unchanged at 97.8.
Crude impact
Crude oil prices are hovering near seven-month highs amid rising worries of a possible military conflict between the US and Iran that would potentially disrupt supply. Additionally, US President Donald Trump, during his Union speech address, said he would not allow a country, which he called the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, to have a nuclear weapon, further supporting oil prices.
Brent futures rose 6 cents to $70.83 per barrel, while. WTI futures rose 4 cents to $65.67 per barrel.
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