Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty staged a comeback on Thursday following the last-hour buying in IT and banking shares, even as US President Donald Trump slapping an additional 25 per cent duty on Indian goods weighed on investor sentiment.
Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff
Rebounding around 926 points from the day’s low, the 30-share BSE Sensex edged higher by 79.27 points or 0.10 per cent to settle at 80,623.26.
The index traded in the red for most of the session and hit a low of 79,811.29.
However, fag-end buying helped recover losses and touch a high of 80,737.55.
The 50-share NSE Nifty went up by 21.95 points or 0.09 per cent to 24,596.15.
The latest US tariff action, imposition of an additional 25 per cent duty to take overall tariffs to 50 per cent on Indian goods over New Delhi’s continued imports of Russian oil, is likely to hit sectors such as textiles, marine and leather exports hard.
India has slammed the action, calling it “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.
India will attract the highest US tariff of 50 per cent, along with Brazil.
Among Sensex firms, Tech Mahindra, HCL Tech, Eternal, Axis Bank, Maruti, Tata Steel, HDFC Bank and Asian Paints were the gainers.
However, Adani Ports, Trent, Tata Motors, Hindustan Unilever and NTPC were among the laggards.
“Domestic equities recovered sharply from the intra-day lows amid a volatile weekly expiry day.
“Although the earlier trade was weighed down by broad-based selling following steep US tariff hikes on India, sentiment improved toward the close as reports of potential peace talks involving Trump, Putin, and Zelensky which raised hopes of a softer US stance on trade.
“This renewed optimism triggered a strong rebound in auto, pharma, metals, and energy sectors and aided the market in recalling its trajectory and concluding in the green,” Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Investments Limited, said.
The BSE midcap gauge climbed 0.30 per cent while smallcap index dipped 0.18 per cent.
Among sectoral indices, BSE Focused IT jumped 0.93 per cent, IT (0.73 per cent), healthcare (0.53 per cent), teck (0.41 per cent) and auto (0.25 per cent).
Telecommunication dropped 0.59 per cent, capital goods (0.41 per cent), commodities (0.37 per cent), power (0.36 per cent) and industrials (0.24 per cent).
As many as 2,193 stocks declined while 1,844 advanced and 154 remained unchanged on the BSE.
In Asian markets, South Korea’s Kospi, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, Shanghai’s SSE Composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng settled in positive territory.
Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 4,999.10 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.
Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.72 per cent to $67.37 a barrel.
