The Indian equity benchmarks moved higher on Wednesday ahead of weekly expiry of index futures and option contracts led by gains in Reliance Industries, Infosys, ICICI Bank, ITC, Bharti Airtel and Larsen & Toubro. The Sensex rose as much as 382 points and Nifty 50 index was trading above its important psychological level of 17,600. Meanwhile, most of the Asian markets were trading higher as US inflation data which came overnight was as bad as expected.
As of 9:24 am, the Sensex was up 347 points at 58,924 and Nifty 50 index advanced 113 points to 17,643.
Japan's Nikkei rose 1.71 per cent, Taiwan Weighted gained 1.8 per cent and South Korea's KOSPI added 1.4 per cent.
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Inflation soared over the past year at its fastest pace in more than 40 years, with costs for food, gasoline, housing and other necessities squeezing American consumers and wiping out the pay raises that many people have received.
The Labour Department said Tuesday that its consumer price index jumped 8.5 per cent in March from 12 months earlier, the sharpest year-over-year increase since 1981. Prices have been driven up by bottlenecked supply chains, robust consumer demand and disruptions to global food and energy markets worsened by Russia’s war against Ukraine. From February to March, inflation rose 1.2 per cent, the biggest month-to-month jump since 2005. Gasoline prices drove more than half that increase, news agency AP reported.
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Back home, buying was visible across sectors as all the 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Metal index's 1.4 per cent gain. Nifty Realty, PSU Bank, Healthcare, IT, FMCG, Financial Services and Auto indices were also up between 0.5-1.2 per cent.
Broader markets were also witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.75 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 1.2 per cent.
Among the individual shares, Anand Rathi Wealth rose as much as 16.4 per cent to hit record high of Rs 711.95 on the BSE a day after it reported its March quarter earnings. The company's net profit jumped more than three times to Rs 346 crore in March quarter compared with Rs 102 crore during the same period last year.
UPL was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 3.61 per cent to Rs 835. ONGC, JSW Steel, Apollo Hospitals, Coal India, Tata Steel, Hindustan Unilever, Bharti Airtel, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra and Reliance Industries also rose between 1-2.5 per cent.
On the flipside, Dr Reddy's Labs, Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, Titan and Divi's Labs were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,234 shares were advancing while 652 were declining on the BSE.
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