The Sensex and the Nifty scaled fresh intraday high in early afternoon trade. The Nifty marched towards 9,900 mark. Trading was volatile ahead of the monthly F&O expiry today. At 12:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 1140.88 points or 3.49% at 33,861.04. The Nifty 50 index was up 327.25 points or 3.43% at 9,880.20.

Shares across Asia jumped following developments overnight regarding the use of Gilead Sciences' antiviral drug Remdesivir as a potential new treatment for Covid-19 patients. Sentiment also improved after China said manufacturing activity in the country expanded slightly in April.

Buying was also triggered after foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turned net buyers of Indian equities on Wednesday (29 April). FPIs bought shares worth a net Rs 722.08 crore on 29 April 2020, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 78.67 crore on 29 April 2020, as per provisional data.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 2.02% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 2.04%.

Both these indices trailed the Sensex.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 1467 shares rose and 723 shares fell. A total of 131 shares were unchanged. In Nifty 50 index, 47 stocks advanced while 3 stocks declined.

Q4 Results Today:

Reliance Industries (up 3%), Hindustan Unilever (down 1.68%), Tech Mahindra (up 2.3%), ABB Power Products (up 0.26%), Aditya Birla Money (up 3.54%), Laurus Labs (fell 0.27%) and Security and Intelligence Services (up 1.06%) are some of the companies that will announce their quarterly result today, 30 April 2020.

Derivatives:

The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of market's expectation of volatility over the near term, fell 1.2% to 33.43. The Nifty April 2020 futures were trading at 9,850.80, a discount of 13.05 points compared with the spot at 9,863.85.

On the options front, the Nifty option chain for 30 April 2020 expiry showed maximum call open interest (OI) of 54.45 lakh contracts at the 10,000 strike price. Maximum put OI of 43.33 lakh contracts was seen at 9,700 strike price.

Stocks in Spotlight:

Morepen Laboratories advanced 3.77% to Rs 18.44 after the company said it received ISO-13485 certification for its medical devices manufacturing facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh. e certification has been awarded for the manufacturing, distribution and after sales service of all point-of-care diagnostic medical devices and their accessories manufactured at the company's facility in Baddi.

Polycab India was locked in an upper circuit of 5% at Rs 724.8 after the company said that the board of directors have scheduled a meeting on 2 May 2020 to consider and approve convening of board meeting to consider and approve the proposal for investment/acquisition of shares.

Lupin said its Pithampur Unit-1 facility received EIR from the US drug regulator for its Pithampur Unit-1, India facility. The inspection for the facility was conducted by the USFDA between 3rd and 11th February 2020 and concluded with two observations. Lupin was down 1.19% at Rs 844.10.

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