Equity benchmarks today climbed for 10th consecutive session; Sensex up by 169 pts & Nifty closes at 11,971

Benchmark indices ended near the day's high after a volatile session on Wednesday, October 14, 2020, even as the global cues were negative. The S&P BSE Sensex added 169.23 points, or 0.42 per cent, to close at 40,794.74. The Nifty 50 index rose 36.55 points, or 0.31 per cent, to 11,971.05. The Nifty Bank gained 382.45 per cent, or 1.63 per cent, to settle at 23,874.65.

On the other hand, the broader market at BSE, the mid and small Caps closed divergently. The BSE Mid-Cap index gained half a per cent and the BSE Small-Cap index fell 0.19 per cent.

The market breadth was negative. On the BSE, 1233 shares rose and 1451 shares fell. On the Nifty 50 block, 26 shares advanced, while 24 dropped and the major gainers include Bajaj Finserv (up 4.10 per cent), SBI Life (up 3.41 per cent), Bajaj Finance (up 2.81 per cent), IndusInd Bank (up 2.42 per cent) and ICICI Bank (up 2.40 per cent). The top losers on the block were Wipro (down 7.06 per cent), NTPC (down 4.11 per cent), ONGC (down 3.11 per cent), Coal India (down 2.81 per cent) and Tata Motors (2.68 per cent).

COVID-19 update

India reported 826,876 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 110,586 deaths while 6,301,927 patients have been discharged, data showed. Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide were at 38,066,297 with 1,085,411 deaths, data showed.

Inflation

The annual rate of inflation, based on monthly Wholesale Price Index (WPI), was at 1.32 per cent (provisional) for September 2020 (over September 2019) compared with 0.33 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year.

IMF on India's GDP

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday said it expects India's GDP to decline 10.3% in FY21. It is expected to rebound by 8.8 per cent in 2021. The IMF has revised India's GDP growth, since its June forecast of a 4.5 per cent drop, while reflecting a more severe-than-anticipated contraction in economic activities in Q1FY21, amid the nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

US Labour Department CPI data

On the economic front, the US consumer price index rose 0.2 per cent in September after climbing by 0.4 per cent in August, according to a report released by the Labour Department on Tuesday. As per the latest forecast from the IMF, the global economy is now projected to contract by 4.4 per cent in 2020 - an upward revision from an estimate of approximately 4.9 per cent made in June.