Indices gain for 2nd day in a row, Sensex up 429 pts; India VIX drops 6%

The Indian benchmark indices gained over one per cent on Thursday, lifted by a rally in auto and IT stocks.

The S&P BSE Sensex climbed 429 points or 1.2 per cent to settle at 35,844 levels. The index had breached the level of 36,000 in intra-day for the first time since March 11. The broader Nifty50 index settled at 10,552, up 122 points, or 1.17 per cent. Volatility index, India VIX, declined nearly 6 per cent to 26.50 levels. 

Mahindra & Mahindra (up 6 per cent) ended as the top Sensex gainer, followed by Titan and HCL Tech. IT stocks made decent gains in the trade. The stocks have surged up to 9 per cent in the past one week after Accenture came out with better-than-expected financial results for the quarter ended May 2020. READ MORE

Sectorally, most indices on the NSE ended in the green. While Nifty Auto rallied nearly 3 per cent to 6,907 levels, the Nifty IT index gained 2.65 per cent to 15,122.55 levels. On the other hand, Nifty Bank and Nifty Realty indices ended flat with negative bias. 

The broader market, too, participated in the rally. The S&P BSE MidCap gained 1 per cent while S&P BSE SmallCap index ended 0.92 per cent higher.

World stocks rose for a fourth straight day on Thursday as encouraging coronavirus vaccine trials kept investors’ spirits up ahead of what was expected to be a record rebound in US jobs figures later.

All major Asian indexes had been upbeat. Japan’s Nikkei rose only fractionally, but China’s blue-chip index added 2 per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.8 per cent as investors brushed off concerns over sweeping new security laws introduced by Beijing.

In commodities, oil prices rose as a sharp drop in oil stockpiles outweighed concerns that a spike in US coronavirus infections and revived lockdown measures in California could stall recovery in fuel demand.

(With inputs from Reuters)