Nifty closes above 17,300, led by pharma, NBFCs, and realty

Bharti Airtel, Adani Ports, and HDFC are the top gainers among Nifty stocks

Market update at 3.30 PM: Indices closed higher after a strong short-covering rally towards the last hour of the session. Nifty closed nearly at the day’s high i.e. above 17,300. The benchmark index is up by 0.60 per cent while Sensex has gained about 350 points. Nifty Midcap and Nifty Smallcap also closed marginally higher.  

Among the sectors, pharma, financials, and realty traded higher while media, FMCG & auto closed lower. Eicher Motors, Adani Ports, and Divi’s Labs emerged as the top gainers while Hero MotoCorp, ONGC & Coal India were the top losers.  

Hero MotoCorp plunged over 7 per cent post the news of the Income Tax department recognising bogus expenses of over Rs 1,000 crore in its recent raid.   

With the positive closing of Nifty, India VIX has crashed over 5 per cent and is now just above 21. Meanwhile, a close watch would be on the Russia-Ukraine peace talk to anticipate the further trend in the market.  

Market update at 11 AM: Indices are trading higher amid volatility. Nifty is currently up by about 50 points and is placed above 17,250. Meanwhile, Sensex has gained over 165 points while the mid-cap & small-cap indices are also trading higher.  

Among the sectors, pharma, realty, and auto are trading higher while media & metal are weak today. Bharti Airtel, Adani Ports, and HDFC are the top gainers among Nifty stocks while the top losers’ list includes ONGC, Coal India & ITC.

Market update at 9.30 AM: Indices have opened higher amid good global cues. Nifty is currently up by 0.3 per cent and is just below 17,300. Meanwhile, the mid-cap and small-cap indices are trading higher by nearly a per cent each.  

Among the sectors, realty, auto, and banks are trading higher while metal & media are trading lower. With this, India VIX slipped over 1 per cent.

Pre-market update: Last night, the US markets closed higher. NASDAQ surged over 1.13 per cent while Dow closed with modest gains of about 94 points.
With this, most of the Asian markets have opened higher, and SGX Nifty indicates a gap-up opening of about 100 points for Nifty.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia are likely to hold their first peace talk after two weeks.
Besides, Crude oil has slipped below USD 105 per barrel, which was trading at the 120-mark a few days back. This has also cheered the Asian markets.
In the last trading session, the FIIs have sold for about Rs 801 crore while the DIIs bought about Rs 1,161 crore worth of equity.
Nifty is likely to open near 17,400, which is the upper limit of the range. The benchmark index is expected to face selling pressure at this level, and thus, volatility is expected to kick in.