This week's trading session commenced on a positive note with Sensex testing 50,850 and Nifty 50 earmarking more than 15,250-level. Monday's trade is expected to be volatile as the Indian exchanges head into derivative contracts expiry week. Nifty 50 is seen to test new highs going forward. Investors appetite for Indian equities was stronger than compared to Asian counterparts as corporate earnings of major companies drive sentiments. A broad-based buying was recorded with banking, financials and pharma stocks outperforming. Metal stocks witnessed profit-booking.
In the opening bell, Sensex jumped nearly 315 points with an intraday high of 50,855.32. While Nifty 50 climbing nearly 77 points with an intraday high of 15,251.90.
At around 09.31 am, Sensex was performing at 50,712.09 up by 171.61 points or 0.34%. Nifty 50 was trading at 15,205.35 higher by 30.05 points or 0.2%.
In terms of the sectoral indices, Nifty Bank, Pharma, Financials and Media indexes surged nearly 1% each. On the contrary, the Nifty Metal index plunged by more than 1.5%.
On the broader market indices on NSE, the India VIX index outperformed by soaring 2.5%. Nifty Small-Caps and MidCaps indexes rose between 0.2-1%.
Top bulls on Nifty 50 were - SBI led the pack surging by 2.3% after March 2021 (Q4FY21) quarterly result announcement. Stocks like Power Grid, Cipla, Divis Lab and Hero MotoCorp strengthened between 1.5-2%.
Top bears on Nifty 50 were - JSW Steel (-3%), Hindalco and Shree Cement plunge more than 2%. Tata Steel dipped by 1.7%. These are the latest companies to announce their Q4 result in the metal segment. Further, stocks like Titan, M&M, IndusInd Bank and HUL dived between 0.75-1%.
Companies that are set to announce their March 2021 quarterly result today and will be in focus are - Grasim Industries, India Cements, JK Paper, Mahanagar Gas, ADF Foods, Balaji Amines, Barbeque-Nation Hospitality, Choksi Imaging, Dalmia Bharat Sugar and Industries, FGP, 3P Land Holdings, ADC India Communications, Hindustan Fluorocarbons, IG Petrochemicals, India Cements Capital, Jonjua Overseas, JSW Holdings, Kanpur Plastipack, Karda Constructions, Lakshmi Machine Works, Loyal Textile Mills, Nutricircle, Pharmaids Pharmaceuticals, Poly Medicure, Ramco Cements, Ramco Industries, Shanthi Gears, Shree Pushkar Chemicals & Fertilisers, Sparc Systems, Summit Securities, Tiaan Consumer, Tirupati Tyres, UTL Industries, and Wall Street Finance.
On the global front, Asian markets were on a mixed note with Hang Seng underperforming the most and the KOSPI index diving marginally. BSE Sensex and Nikkei 225 were outperformers. The Asian peers tracked mixed cues on Wall Street on Friday after US strong economic data. Some support was provided by bargain hunting, however, inflation worries coupled with volatile trading in high-risk assets such as Bitcoin and Covid-19 resurgence continued to keep investors mood cautious.
The U.S. composite index grew to a record of 68.1 in May 2021 compared to 63.5 in the prior month, as per the IHS Markit data. This indicates economic recovery.
Also, on Friday, the European stocks were higher as acceleration in business growth in the eurozone lifted investors sentiments to cautiously optimistic against the rising inflation concern.
In India, Covid-19 plays a major role in mood setter for investors. The country's death toll has crossed the 3 lakh mark becoming the third country after the US and Brazil. India clocked the last 1 lakh tolls in less than a month as the second wave hit the country hard. Notably, new cases have declined to 2,22,315 in the last 24 hours. India so far has more than 26M cases only second to the US.