Sensex Rises 235 pts, Nifty Tops 17,800 in Fag-End Ahead of TCS Earnings

Equity markets remained listless in trade rising to the day’s high levels in the last few minutes, as investors await CPI inflation. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex closed at 60,393, up 235 points or 0.39 per cent. The Nifty50 index, meanwhile, shut shop at 17,812, up 90 points or 0.5 per cent.

In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap and BSE SmallCap indices gained 0.57 per cent and 0.41 per cent, respectively.

Among sectors, the Nifty Pharma index leaped over 2 per cent today as India saw over 7,000 fresh cases of Covid-19. Within the lot, Divis Labs surged 9,65 per cent, Laurus Labs 7 per cent, Aurobindo Pharma 3.5 per cent, and Biocon 3 per cent.

Nifty IT, and Auto indices were other top gainers as they advanced around 1 per cent each.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said: “The domestic market exhibited cautiousness in anticipation of the release of various economic data and the upcoming Q4 earnings season. The IT sector drove the optimism in the market as investors await the earnings releases of sector majors. Despite expectations of a cooling down of CPI inflation to below the RBI’s upper tolerance level, the persistence of sticky core inflation remains a concern.”

Global Cues

Asian equities inched lower on Wednesday ahead of a crucial U.S. inflation report that will likely influence the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy path, with markets wagering another hike in interest rates at the central bank’s next meeting.MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.17% lower in choppy trading. Japan’s Nikkei was 0.49% higher, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.65%.

Tokyo shares opened higher Wednesday following gains on Wall Street, while investors awaited the release of US inflation data later in the day.The benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.23 percent, or 64.86 points, to 27,988.23 in early trade, while the broader Topix index added 0.61 percent, or 13.52 points, to 2,005.37.

Wall Street stocks ended mixed on Tuesday, losing steam late in the session as investors awaited crucial inflation data and the unofficial kick-off of first-quarter reporting season.

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