Renewed buying halts 2-day fall

Mumbai Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty closed over half a per cent higher on Monday, snapping their two-day falling streak on buying in index majors Reliance Industries and Tata Consultancy Services and firm global trends.

The 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 367.47 points or 0.56 per cent to settle at 66,527.67 with 24 of its constituents ending in the green. The index opened lower, but later rebounded from early lows and hit a high of 66,598.42 as power, oil, IT and metal shares advanced. The NSE Nifty climbed 107.75 points or 0.55 per cent to end at 19,753.80. The broader index fell below the 19,600 level in early trade, but later recouped losses and hit a high of 19,772.75 as most of its shares traded in the green. As many as 35 of Nifty shares advanced, 14 declined and one closed unchanged. Sensex dropped by 547 points, while Nifty lost 132 points in the last two sessions. The indices have gained in two out of the past seven sessions.

“Indian indices have resumed their rally, following the global market trend, as cooling inflation across the globe gave hopes of an end to the policy tightening era. The latest positive development was the Eurozone’s inflation slowing for the third consecutive month in July, coming in at 5.3 per cent, in line with market predictions,” said Vinod Nair, head (research) at Geojit Financial Services. “Nifty resumed the uptrend on Monday after a two-day fall aided by positive global cues and buying in IT and metal stocks,” said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 1,023.91 crore, according to exchange data.

Reliance Industries is the country’s most valued firm with a market valuation of Rs17,23,777.11 crore, followed by TCS, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank (Rs6,98,385.07 crore) and Hindustan Unilever (Rs6,01,847.80 crore) in the top five order.