The stock market on Monday started the week on strong note, breaking a two-day fall to end higher with Nifty at 24,950. This was led by buying across the sectors, ignoring mixed global cues amid ongoing Middle East tensions.
At close, the Sensex was up 677.55 points or 0.84% at 81,796.15, and the Nifty was up 227.90 points or 0.92% at 24,946.50. The broader markets also ended higher in line with blue chips, with the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices each gaining 1% in today’s trade.
Almost all the sectoral indices ended in the green with bank, FMCG, Capital Goods, Consumer Durables, IT, metal, realty, oil & gas up 0.5-1%. The Nifty IT index rose over a percent to emerge as the top sectoral gainer as the IT index has now recorded gains in eight out of the past nine sessions.
In terms of the performance of some of the key IT players, Coforge shares gained nearly 1.6% to trade at Rs 1,821 apiece, while those of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) were up over 1.5% to hover around Rs 3,500 apiece. HCL Tech shares rose over 1.5%, while Persistent Systems and Mphasis shares gained over 1%.
Infosys and Tech Mahindra shares also gained over 1% to trade at Rs 1,620.50 apiece and Rs 1,677 apiece respectively.
On BSE, nearly 100 stocks touched their 52-week highs. These included Maharashtra Scooters, Max Financial, Bharat Electronics, Laurus Labs, Max Healthcare, Narayana Hrudalaya, Muthoot Finance, Ramco Cements, Manappuram Finance, and JK Cement, among others.
Further, 71 stocks touched 52-week lows. Some of the key ones were Easy Trip Planners Ltd, Jai Balaji Industries Ltd, Naksh Precious Metals Ltd, National Standard (India) Ltd, Navkar Urbanstructure Ltd, Shalby Ltd, and Schloss Bangalore Ltd.
In the aviation sector, SpiceJet shares ended over 2% lower even as the airline reported a sharp jump in earnings for the March quarter of FY2025. Shares of IndiGo rose over 2% after Jefferies reiterated its bullish view, citing strong growth prospects for IndiGo in the coming quarters and maintaining a ‘buy’ rating on the stock.
Experts suggest that investors may have engaged in short covering following the recent selloff in the domestic market.