Benchmarks indices ended with strong gains; Sensex gains 449 points & Nifty 50 settles at 11,873

Sensex Today: Domestic stocks markets witnessed a sharp rally on Monday, October 19, 2020, due to a rally in the banking sector post-HDFC Bank strong Q2FY21 result and positive global cues. The S&P BSE Sensex closed 448.62 points, or 1.12 per cent, up at 40,431.60. The benchmark Index Nifty 50 gained 110.60 points, or 0.94 per cent, to close at 11,873.05. Advances outnumbered declines by almost 2:1. Similarly, Nifty Bank rose 733.50 points, or 3.12 per cent, to 24,266.75.

Overall, the uptrend remains intact but enhanced volatility can be seen in the coming weeks, with crucial support for Nifty around 11,600-11,650 levels whereas resistance can be seen around 12,000-12,050 zone.

On the BSE, 1492 shares rose and 1169 shares fell. Similarly, 36 shares advanced in the Nifty 50 block and 14 declined. The major gainers on Nifty 50 include ICIC Bank (up 5.11 per cent), Nestle India (up 4.53 per cent), GAIL (up 4.17 per cent), Axis Bank (up 4.16 per cent), and SBI (up 4.08 per cent). The losers were Divis Laboratories (down 3.60 per cent), Eicher Motors (down 3.15 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (down 2.94 per cent), Cipla (down 2.33 per cent) and Bajaj Auto (down 2.02 per cent).

Industry leaders, like ACC, HUL and Britannia, will announce their second-quarter results of the financial year 2020-21 (Q2FY21), which will decide action for that specific sector. Thus, market action for the next few days will mainly depend on result announcement, management commentary post result and global happenings.

India's forex & COVID Impact

India's foreign exchange reserves jumped by $5.86 billion in the week ended October 9, 2020, to hit a fresh high of $551.5 billion. As the COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp decline in imports of crude oil and gold and Indian companies attracted huge foreign direct investments, the forex reserves swelled by $75 billion since lockdown announcement in last week of March.

US industrial production

US industrial production fell 0.6 per cent in September. The Federal Reserve reported on Friday that industrial production suffered its first decline since a 12.7 per cent drop in April during the spring lockdowns. The University of Michigan released a report showing a bigger than expected improvement in consumer sentiment in October. The preliminary report said the consumer sentiment index rose to 81.2 in October from the final September reading of 80.4.