HDFC Bank leads financial sector rally, powering D-Street to all-time highs

Indian headline indices touched record highs on Wednesday — courtesy banks and financial stocks, especially HDFC Bank, which surged as investors bet on the possibility of an increase in the stock's weightage in the MSCI index in the August review.

The 30-stock S&P BSE Sensex touched a lifetime high of 80,074.3 before ending the session at 79,987, up by 545 points or 0.69% while the broader Nifty scaled a peak of 24,309.15 before settling the day at 24,287, gaining by 163 points or 0.67%.

Banking gauge Nifty Bank also hit its fresh lifetime high of 53,256.70, before ending the day at 53,089.25, up 921.15 points or 1.77%.

Expert Take

Commenting on the day's action, Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services said a broad-based rally was witnessed in the Indian market, boosted by largecaps, with financials taking the centre stage. "With the drop in Indian banks' GNPAs to a 12-year low, the sector is anticipated to outperform in the near term. On the global front, the US FED chair's commentary on inflation cooling down to 2% by the end of CY25 was sentimentally positive. FOMC minutes later on Wednesday might give hints on the start of the rate-cut cycle," Nair said.

Kunal Shah, Senior Technical & Derivative Analyst at LKP Securities said that the index is trading in a strong uptrend with higher-high and higher-low formations on the daily chart. The immediate support now stands at 52,500 and a dip towards this support would be an ideal opportunity to initiate fresh long positions, he suggested.

Top Gainers And Losers

The Nifty index was a sea of green with 40 stocks closing the session on a positive note. There were 9 declines and one stock remained unchanged. The top gainers at the closing time were Tata Consumer Products, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank while the top losers were Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Titan Company, Reliance Industries (RIL), Tata Motors and Hindalco Industries.

Nifty Media was the only outlier to end in the red out of the 16 sectoral indices. It ended with declines of 0.4%. In the gainers' pack Nifty Bank and Nifty Private Bank topped the chart with nearly 2% uptick, each. Nifty FMCG, Nifty Metal, Nifty Pharma closed with gains up to 2%.