Bull run continues, Sensex, Nifty gain for 4th day

Persistent capital inflows by domestic institutional investors and retail investors kept the markets in fine nick

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

Indian market continued its winning spree for the fourth straight session by gaining around 92 points to 33,880, with banking and metal shares leading the way tracking positive Asian cues as China revealed its future economic agenda including further opening up of economy and lowering import tariffs on certain goods.

The signs of easing global trade war concerns made investors more confident about taking positions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday pledged to lower auto import tariffs, protect the intellectual property of foreign companies and further open the world's second largest economy.

“Market moved range bound despite a rally in global market owing to positive signal from China on trade tariffs. Metal and realty outperformed due to ease in global trade tensions while surge in oil price and bond yield refrained heavy weights to participate," Vinod Nair, head of research, Geojit Financial Services Ltd, said.

On the macro front, domestic market is reversing from the support level in expectation of pick up in Q4 earnings and further moderation in (March) CPI inflation to 4.2 per cent against 4.44 per cent in the previous month, Nair added.

The broader NSE Nifty also ended above the key 10,400-mark.

Furthermore, widening of bets by investors amid optimism ahead of earnings season, to begin later this week, also supported the uptrend, brokers said.

The Sensex opened higher and went further to hit a high of 33,949.98 and finally settled 91.71 points, or 0.27 per cent, higher at 33,880.25.

The gauge had risen 774.47 points in the previous three sessions.

The 50-share NSE Nifty settled higher 22.90 points, or 0.22 per cent, at 10,402.25 after shuttling between 10,424.85 and 10,381.50.

Persistent capital inflows by domestic institutional investors and retail investors kept the market in fine nick, analysts said.

Domestic institutional investors picked shares worth a net Rs 359.35 crore while foreign portfolio investors sold shares worth a net Rs 1,300.93 crore on Monday, as per provisional data.

Positive leads from other Asian markets, a higher opening in European shares and overnight gains at Wall street also bolstered trading sentiment here.

Axis Bank took the top spot among Sensex components, up 5.43 per cent, after its CEO and managing director Shikha Sharma's tenure was shortened.

ICICI Bank too caught buyers' fancy and gained 2.78 per cent.

Other big movers included Adani Ports, Tata Steel, Coal India, L&T, SBI, Bharti Airtel, Yes Bank, ONGC, TCS, Wipro, Power Grid, Infosys, ITC, HUL and RIL -- gaining up to 2.75 per cent.

In contrast, Tata Motors, M&M, Hero MotoCorp, HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank, HDFC Ltd, Kotak Bank, Sun Pharma,Dr Reddy's, NTPC, Maruti Suzuki and Bajaj Auto ended in the negative terrain largely on profit-booking.

Shares of sugar companies such as Dwarikesh Sugar, Bajaj Hindusthan Sugar, Balrampur Chini, Mawana Sugar and Uttam Sugar turned buyers' fancy largely on speculative buying by participants and gained up to 9.53 per cent.

In the sector terms, the BSE metal index emerged best performer as it climbed 2 per cent, followed by realty (1.25 per cent), capital goods (1.08 per cent), bankex (0.93 per cent), infrastructure (0.51 per cent), PSU (0.48 per cent), power (0.38 per cent), IT (0.32 per cent), teck (0.31 per cent) and consumer durables (0.17 per cent).

In the broader markets, mid-cap index firmed up by 0.18 per cent, but small-cap index succumbed to profit-booking and shed 0.02 per cent.

Globally, Asian markets ended higher. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.65 per cent, while Shanghai Composite Index inched up 1.66 per cent. Japan's Nikkei too surged 0.54 per cent.

In Europe, France's Paris CAC was up 0.66 per cent, while Frankfurt's DAX gained 1 per cent in their early deals. London's FTSE was quoting 0.35 per cent higher.