Strong buying sentiments in Realty and Banking raise market's hope
The Indian equity benchmarks ended Wednesday’s trade on an optimistic note, driven by strong buying sentiment in Realty and Banking. The Sensex and Nifty closed above their crucial 40,450 and 11,950 levels, respectively.
The markets had made a pessimistic start as traders remain concerned with a private report that the government may discontinue spending on 200-odd schemes to stick to its fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent. However, the markets reversed an early weakness to trade by taking the support of the statement made by Nirmala Sitharaman, the Finance Minister of India, that the government is eager to modify rules and boost investments in the infrastructure space and also focus on real estate as a part of a broader plan to kickstart the economic growth.
The buying got intensified as sentiments were buoyed with the Commerce and Industry Minister, Piyush Goyal's statement that India’s services sector has a huge potential to generate job opportunities and push the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth upward.
The BSE Sensex ended at 40,469.78, up by 221.55 points or 0.55 per cent after trading in a range of 40,037.53 and 40,606.91. The broader indices ended mixed; the BSE midcap index rose 0.15% while the smallcap index was down by 0.36%.
The top gaining sectoral indices on BSE were Realty, up by 2.57%, Bankex, up by 1.41%, Metal, up by 0.57%, IT, up by 0.46%, and Industrials, up by 0.34%. On the other hand, Consumer Durables, down by 5.48%, Telecom, down by 2.60%, Consumer Discretionary Goods & Services, down by 0.77%, Energy, down by 0.66%, and PSU, down by 0.37%, were the top losing indices on BSE.
The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank, up by 2.64%, Infosys, up by 2.37%, HDFC, up by 1.78%, IndusInd Bank, up by 1.74%, and HDFC Bank, up by 1.42%. The top losers were Bharti Airtel, down by 3.31%, Reliance Industries, down by 1.07%, Bajaj Finance, down by 1.04%, ONGC, down by 1.03%, and Maruti Suzuki, down by 1.01%.