At close, Sensex was up 185 points at 73,319.55 while Nifty was up 34 points at 22,713. The benchmark indices closed nearly 1,800 points and over 530 points higher than their respective intraday lows.
In the morning trading hours, Trump’s comments suggesting that US can intensify its attacks on Iran in the coming weeks spooked investors. Sensex crashed nearly 1,600 points to hit the day’s low at 71,546, while Nifty 50 declined around 500 points to briefly fall to 22,182. The sharp selloff had wiped off nearly Rs 11 lakh crore from the total market capitalisation of all companies listed on BSE.
However, markets witnessed a sudden, sharp buying interest in the afternoon trading hours, leading to Sensex and Nifty recovering all losses and moving into the green.
IT stocks including HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra, Infosys and TCS were among the top gainers on Sensex, jumping 2-3.5%. HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance, Maruti Suzuki and Titan followed, rising around 1% each. Asian Paints shares, however, were the top losers, dropping more than 2%, while Eternal, Sun Pharma, NTPC and others followed.
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Sectoral watch
The sharp recovery in the markets was led by IT stocks. Nifty IT gained nearly 3% to emerge as the top sectoral gainer on NSE. Nifty Realty rose over 1%. On the other hand, Nifty Pharma and Nifty Consumer Durables declined around 1% each.Broader markets, however, underperformed and closed in the red. Nifty Midcap 100 index fell 0.26% while Nifty Smallcap 100 index declined 0.38%. Around 2,020 stocks advanced on NSE, while 1,216 stocks declined and 75 remained unchanged.
Rupee records sharpest single-day rise in more than 12 years
Indian rupee jumped sharply against the US dollar on Thursday, recording its sharpest single-day rise in more than 12 years, after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) extended its curbs to offshore derivatives in order to protect the currency from its free fall. Rupee closed 1.8% higher at 93.10 against the American greenback, as against the previous close of 94.83.
This came after the RBI on Wednesday barred banks from offering rupee non-deliverable forwards to resident and non-resident clients. Banks can still offer deliverable FX contracts for hedging, but users cannot offset those trades with positions taken offshore. The measures disrupted a $149 billion-a-day market in what analysts call the toughest measures in over a decade.
Thursday also marks weekly expiry for Sensex, which typically sees heightened volatility during such days.
MORE TO COME…