Stocks bounce back on bargain hunting

Mumbai: Market benchmarks clawed back some lost ground on Tuesday after two days of heavy declines as investors made a cautious return to energy, IT and finance stocks amid supportive global cues. A sharp recovery in the rupee further fuelled the rebound, traders said.

The 30-share BSE Sensex opened strong and rallied to 56,900, before paring some gains to close at 56,319.01, up 497 points or 0.89 per cent. Similarly, the NSE Nifty advanced 156.65 points or 0.94 per cent to 16,770.85.

"Indian market is attempting to recover from Monday's heavy selloff, domestic indices staged a gap-up opening on bargain hunting supported by positive sentiments across global markets. Although concerns surrounding the impact of Omicron and FII selling still lingers, investors are trading cautiously and are optimistic. Gains in IT, commodities and metal stocks lifted the indices higher," said Vinod Nair, head (research) at Geojit Financial Services.

Arijit Malakar, head (research-retail), Ashika Stock Broking, adds: "The market is expected to remain weak amid concerns over the new Omicron strain which could derail the global economic recovery and sooner-than-expected interest rate hikes in developed economies. The market is now sell on rise market as the sustained foreign fund outflows and renewed concerns around Omicron variant of coronavirus may trigger profit taking at higher levels." Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers in the capital market on Monday, as they offloaded shares worth Rs 3,565.36 crore, according to exchange data.

HCL Tech was the top performer in the Sensex pack, spurting 3.91 per cent, followed by Wipro, Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, Titan and Sun Pharma. On the other hand, PowerGird, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, SBI, M&M, Kotak Bank and HDFC closed with losses of up to 1.50 per cent. The market breadth was in favour of the bulls, with 23 advances compared to seven declines.

All sectoral indices ended on a positive note, with BSE metal, consumer durables, basic materials, telecom, teck and IT indices climbing up to 2.99 per cent. Broader BSE midcap and smallcap indices rose up to 1.43 per cent.