Sensex Ends 179 pts Higher, Nifty Above 18,300; Varun Beverages Surges 7%

The S&P BSE Sensex reclaimed the 62,000-mark in the intra-day deals, before ending at 61,761, down 3 points. The Nifty50, meanwhile, approached the 18,350-mark in intra-day deals, before shutting shop at 18,266, up 1.5 points.

Broader markets were weak today with the BSE Smallcap index closing in the red, and BSE MidCap index flat.

Among individual stocks, Indiabulls Real Estate put pressure on the former index as it crashed 20 per cent, followed by Sterling Tools (down 15 per cent), Apar Industries (14.5 per cent), and Ircon (7.4 per cent).

Among sectors, the Nifty PSU Bank index fell nearly 3 per cent, followed by the Nifty Realty index (close to 1 per cent). The Nifty Auto index rose the most, up 0.5 per cent.

V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said, “Since bulls are in control of the market now, it is possible that this rally can take the market towards the Nifty all-time high of 18887, which is only 3 per cent away. The main driving force of this rally is the sustained FII buying for the last nine trading days with cumulative buying of Rs 15767 crores. This sudden change in FII strategy has also triggered some short covering, which has assisted the bulls.”

He added that the market will be closely watching the Karnataka exit poll results this evening. A congress victory in the elections is unlikely to impact the market much, but an unexpected setback to the BJP may slightly impact near-term sentiments. More important from the market perspective will be the CPI data from the US expected today. If the disinflation trend continues that would be a shot in the arm for equity markets globally.

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