Sensex Rises Over 500 Points, Nifty Firm Above 17,500 Led By Reliance Industries

The Indian equity benchmarks extended gains in noon deals on Monday after staging a flat start led by gains in Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Axis Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Mahindra & Mahindra. The Sensex rose as much as 547 points and Nifty 50 index moved above its important psychological level of 17,500 hitting low of 17,360.

As of 2:08 pm, the Sensex was up 482 points at 58,847 and Nifty 50 index climbed 131 points to 17,528.

Most of the Asian markets were trading lower as Singapore's Straits Times fell 0.3 per cent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng declined 0.83 per cent, Taiwan Weighted fell 0.33 per cent and Japan's Nikkei rose 0.2 per cent.

Asian share markets made a stuttering start on Monday and the dollar held firm after a stunning U.S. payrolls report pushed back against talk of recession but also bolstered the case for more super-sized rate hikes.

Markets quickly moved to price around a 70 per cenr chance the Federal Reserve will lift rates by 75 basis points in September, sending two-year yields up 20 basis points on Friday and further inverting the curve.

Stocks closed lower Friday after new data on the hot U.S. jobs market suggested the Fed won’t soon rein in its aggressive rate hikes.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq fell, while the Dow Jones industrials notched a small gain.

Back home, eleven of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty PSU Bank index's nearly 1 per cent fall. Nifty Bank, Financial Services, IT and Oil & Gas indices also fell around 0.5 per cent.

On the other hand, Metal, Auto and Consumer Durable stocks were witnessing buying interest.

Broader markets were facing a mild selling pressure as Nifty Midcap 100 index declined 0.09 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index rose 0.14 per cent.

Among the individual shares, Paytm surged over 5 per cent to Rs 829 after its revenue in June quarter rose 89 per cent to Rs 1,680 crore. Its net loss however widened to Rs 645 crore from Rs 382 crore in the same period last year.

State Bank of India was top Nifty loser, the stock fell nearly 3 per cent to Rs 516 after its June quarter earnings failed to enthuse investors. SBI on Saturday posted 7 per cent decline in standalone net profit at Rs 6,068 crore for the first quarter of the current financial year due to fall in income.

The bank had reported a net profit of Rs 6,504 crore in the April-June quarter of 2021-22.

Its standalone total income declined to Rs 74,998.57 crore in the first quarter of 2022-23, as against Rs 77,347.17 crore in the same period a year ago, SBI said in a regulatory filing.

The operating profit of the bank slipped by 33 per cent to Rs 12,753 crore from Rs 18,975 crore in the April-June quarter of the previous fiscal, impacted by Mark to Market (MTM) losses on its investment book.

Bharat Petroleum declined nearly 4 per cent to Rs 323 after it reported net loss of Rs 6,291 crore in the first quarter of current fiscal on holding fuel prices despite rise in cost.

Net loss of Rs 6,290.8 crore in April-June compared with Rs 3,192.58 crore in the same period a year back, the company said in a statement.

Revenue from operations rose to Rs 1.38 lakh crore from Rs 89,688.98 crore in April-June 2021.

Infosys, Wipro, ONGC, Divi's Labs, UltraTech Cement, TCS, Shree Cements, Grasim Industries, Asian Paints, HCL Technologies and Hindustan Unilever also fell 0.5-2 per cent.

On the flipside, Mahindra & Mahindra, NTPC, IndusInd Bank, Hindalco, Bajaj Finserv, Reliance Industries and Maruti Suzuki were among the gainers.