Shares of Oil & Natural Gas Corp. rose to the highest since February on sharp rally in price of crude oil. Brent crude prices rose above $50 for the first time since March, as coronavirus vaccination rollouts kept hopes alive that demand for crude would build up next year.
ONGC stock touched an intraday high of Rs 101, rising 10.26% against previous close of Rs 91.60 on BSE. The stock has risen 8% in the last 3 days.
ONGC share is trading higher than 5 day, 20 day, 50 day, 100 day and 200 day moving averages. However, the share has lost 24.61% in one year and fallen 25.05% since the beginning of this year.
However, in one month, the share has risen 33.47%. Market cap of the firm rose to Rs 1.22 lakh crore.
"Indications that demand is coming back and of a likely improvement in refining margins may now drive the beaten-down oil and gas sector to lead gains going forward," Rusmik Oza, head of fundamental research at Kotak Securities told Reuters.
The contract rose $1.26 to $46.78 per barrel on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Sensex and Nifty retreated from record highs and traded flat with negative bias in the afternoon session, backed by weak opening in European equities. Sensex was trading 42 points lower at 45,912 and Nifty fell by 23 points to 13,454. During today's early session, Sensex hit an all-time high of 46,277 and Nifty too logged a record high of 13,566.