Reliance fuels market rally after 2-day fall

Mumbai: Equity indices found firmer ground on Thursday after a two-day decline, buoyed by a rally in market heavyweight Reliance Industries and easing crude oil prices. However, a depreciating rupee and unrelenting foreign fund outflows capped the gains, traders said.

Overcoming a wobbly start, the 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 436.94 points or 0.79 per cent to finish at 55,818.11. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty surged 105.25 points or 0.64 per cent to 16,628. Reliance Industries stole the show in Thursday's session, vaulting 3.51 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finserv, Sun Pharma, HCL Tech, TCS, Infosys, Asian Paints and Tata Steel.

The losers' list comprised HDFC twins, PowerGrid, HUL, Kotak Bank, ICICI Bank, M&M, L&T, Maruti and Tech Mahindra. "High-frequency data like GST collection and PMI have shown a good start to FY23. Crude prices have declined providing an edge to the performance of the Indian market. "However, a lot will depend on central bank's policy in India and US, which will be announced in the next two weeks," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

In the broader market, the BSE smallcap gauge rose 0.60 per cent but the midcap index dipped 0.04 per cent. Among BSE sectoral indices, energy jumped 2.33 per cent, oil and gas 2.14 per cent, IT 1.56 per cent, teck 1.55 per cent and utilities 1.07 per cent. Auto, capital goods, finance and bank were the laggards.

"After a subdued start, markets bounced back sharply on the back of renewed optimism as investors lapped up shares of recently beaten down IT and oil & gas stocks. In fact, Indian shares outperformed other Asian peers, which mostly ended in the red," said Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities Ltd. Global markets were mixed after oil benchmark Brent crude declined 2.21 per cent to $113.7 per barrel following reports that Saudi Arabia is ready to ramp up supplies to fill the shortfall created by Western sanctions on Russian oil.

Elsewhere in Asia, markets in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul ended lower, while Shanghai remained in the green. Markets in Europe were trading with gains during the afternoon trade. Wall Street had ended lower on Wednesday.

The rupee depreciated by 10 paise to close at 77.60 against the US dollar. Foreign institutional investors remained net sellers, offloading shares worth Rs 1,930.16 crore on Wednesday, according to stock exchange data.