Bombay Stock Exchange building. (Wikimedia Commons)
Sensex and Nifty closed higher on Tuesday in a volatile with the key Q2 results lined up today. Market participants seemed to be cautious over the second-quarter earnings as a zig-zag movement in both Sensex and Nifty was observed. BSE Sensex gained 100.62 points or 0.31% to close at 32,607.34 points while NSE Nifty added 22.85 points or 0.22% to finish at 10,207.7 points. HDFC Bank, Asian Paints, Ambuja Cements and Zee Entertainment have posted quite decent numbers for the quarter ended 30 September.
Shares of Asian Paints were the biggest gainer on Sensex today, rose as much as 4.1% to Rs 1,220.5 after the company reported a rise of 21% in second-quarter profit to Rs 576 crore. While Zee Entertainment was the leader on Nifty, advanced 6.65% to Rs 524.35 after the company posted over two-fold jump in consolidated net profit at Rs 590.80 crore for the second-quarter of the financial year 2018.
The stock of HDFC Bank ended little changed, up 0.13% at Rs 1,865.15 after the most valuable lender reported a 20.1% jump in net profit to Rs 4,151 crore for the second quarter of FY 2017-2018. The gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) rose to 1.26% of gross advances as compared to 1.02% in the same period a year ago and the net NPAs also increased to 0.4% from 0.3%.
Other shares which also gained during the day include SBI, ONGC, NTPC, GAIL, UPL, HUL, risen up to 3.64% while HCL Tech, Yes Bank, IndusInd Bank, and Tata Motors lost up to 2.6%. The stocks of heavyweight companies such as SBI, ICICI Bank, Asian Paints, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HUL, ONGC, and NTPC contributed the most to the Sensex gains. Collectively these seven stocks alone added about 115 points to the index while Infosys, Tata Motors, Reliance Industries and Sun Pharma capped the upmove. The shares of the second-largest IT company Infosys settled 1.37% down at Rs 926.75 ahead of its Q2 earnings report.
