Benchmark equity indices S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 extended gains in afternoon trading on Monday, led by gains in HDFC Bank after the lender reported stronger-than-expected earnings for the June quarter. The Sensex index rose as much as 422 points to hit an intraday high of 37,442.42 and the Nifty 50 benchmark traded above its important psychological level of 11,000. HDFC Bank shares soared nearly 4 per cent after the country's largest bank by market capitalisation reported a 19.58 per cent year-on-year increase in net profit to Rs 6,658.62 crore for the quarter ended June 30, driven by higher interest income and lower costs.
At 2:18 pm, the Sensex was up 420 points at 37,440 and Nifty was up 126 points at 11,028.
Strong corporate earnings in June quarter along with easy liquidity are helping equity markets to scale new four-month highs despite the rising COVID-19 cases in the country, analysts said.
Gain in the HDFC Bank stock contributed more than 150 points to the gain in Sensex, BSE data showed.
All sector gauges, barring the index of pharma shares, were trading higher led by a more than 2 per cent gain in the Nifty Bank index. Financial services, banking, IT and realty sector shares also witnessed buying interest.
Mid- and small-cap shares jumped, with the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices up more than 1 per cent in late afternoon deals.
Britannia Industries was the top Nifty gainer, up 5 per cent at Rs 3,964. Bharti Infratel, Bajaj Finserv, UPL, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, Grasim Industries, Hero MotoCorp, HCL Technologies and Coal India were among the gainers.
On the flipside, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Tata Motors, Bharat Petroleum, Zee Entertainment, Maruti Suzuki and NTPC were among the losers.
Overall market breadth was positive, as 1,494 shares advanced on the BSE against 1,101 that moved lower.
