Metal, banking stocks sparkle amid volatile trade in bourses

Mumbai: Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty overcame bouts of volatility to settle in the green for the second straight session on Friday, propped up by robust demand for the metal, banking and financial stocks amid a firm trend in global equities.

Besides, a strengthening rupee and lower crude prices in the international markets also influenced sentiments here, traders said. In a volatile trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex rose 355.06 points or 0.62 per cent to settle at 57,989.90. During the day, it hit a high of 58,178.94 and a low of 57,503.90. The broader NSE Nifty gained 114.45 points or 0.67 per cent to end at 17,100.05.

"The Nifty witnessed a volatile day of trade today. It witnessed sharp swings in both directions and ultimately closed in the green for the second consecutive day. We believe that the pullback rally has some more steam left and the Nifty is likely to carry on this positive momentum next week as well," said Jatin Gedia, Technical Research Analyst, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas.

HCL Tech led the Sensex gainers' chart, spurting 3.58 per cent, followed by UltraTech Cement, Nestle India, Tata Steel, Kotak Bank, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel and HDFC twins. In contrast, ITC, Maruti, NTPC, Asian Paints and Sun Pharma were among the main laggards, shedding up to 1.51 per cent.

In the broader market, the BSE midcap gauge climbed 0.29 per cent and smallcap index advanced 0.69 per cent.

Among sectoral indices, realty jumped 3.16 per cent, metal 2.42 per cent, bankex (1.22 per cent), IT (1.10 per cent) financial services (1.01 per cent) and commodities (1.37 per cent). FMCG, auto and healthcare chalked up losses.

After showing high volatility at the swing low of 16,850 levels on Thursday, Nifty showed a sustainable upward move with volatility on Friday and closed the day higher, said Nagaraj Shetti, Technical Research Analyst, HDFC Securities.

Markets were volatile and moved with a positive bias as investors resorted to select buying. On a weekly basis, Nifty declined 1.8 per cent, falling for the second consecutive week, though it recovered partly from the intra-week low.

India's banking system is expected to remain unscathed from the troubles in Credit Suisse as it has a very small presence in the country, experts said. Although Credit Suisse is more relevant to India's financial system than Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), it has very limited operations, according to a report by Jefferies India.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded shares worth a net Rs 282.06 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.