Market ends higher for second consecutive day

Indian equity markets ended higher for the second consecutive day on Thursday ahead of the industrial production data for the month of October and CPI inflation for November, which will be released later in the day.

Some comfort came with the former President Pranab Mukherjee’s statement that ‘certain things’ that are happening would have its impact and he was not worried over the economic slowdown. He further said there is nothing wrong in public sector banks needing capital infusion. Sentiments remained on the positive side ahead of GST Council meeting, headed by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, which is schedule on December 18, 2019, in the backdrop of lower-than-expected GST collection and pending compensation to many states.

Key indices continued their rally mood to reach at fresh intraday high points in the afternoon deals. However, in the last hour of the trade, the markets trimmed some of the gains as traders turned cautious with a private report that said that India's economy is expected to grow at 4.3 per cent in December quarter this year amid concerns over crisis in the NBFC sector.

The BSE Sensex ended at 40,581.71, up by 169.14 points or 0.42 per cent after trading in a range of 40,490.69 and 40,712.65. The broader indices ended in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.69 per cent while Small cap index was up by 0.59 per cent.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 7.17 per cent, Yes Bank up by 5.96 per cent, Vedanta up by 3.86 per cent, Tata Steel up by 3.29 per cent and SBI was up by 2.91 per cent. The top losers were Infosys down by 2.63 per cent, ONGC down by 1.68 per cent, HCL Tech down by 1.51 per cent, TCS was down by 1.20 per cent, and Bharti Airtel was down by 0.95 per cent.