Sensex, Nifty Close Higher After A Day's Pause; SBI Surges Over 8%

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes bounced back after a day's pause in the previous session led by gains in banking, financial services, metal and energy shares. The benchmarks opened higher but turned flat to rise soon after as banking stocks like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India and Axis Bank witnessed buying interest. The Sensex rose as much as 425 points and the Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 10,177.80.

The Sensex ended 306.54 points or 0.9 per cent higher at 34,287.24 and the Nifty 50 index advanced 113.05 points or 1.13 per cent to close at 10,142.15.

Seventeen of 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE ended higher led by the S&P BSE Bankex index's nearly 3 per cent gain. S&P BSE Realty, Power, Metal, Telecom, Finance and Basic Materials indexes also rose between 1-3.5 per cent each.

On the other hand, S&P BSE Information Technology index was top loser, down 0.75 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares also witnessed buying interest as the S&P BSE MidCap index rose 1.8 per cent and S&P BSE SmallCap index surged 2.5 per cent.

Tata Motors was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock rose 14 per cent to close at Rs 112. State Bank of India surged 9 per cent after its profit rose over four fold in quarter ended March 2020 to Rs 3,581 crore.

Bharti Infratel, Tata Steel, Hindalco, UPL, Grasim Industries, Bajaj Finance, BPCL and HDFC Bank also rose between 4-8 per cent.

On the flipside, TCS, Hindustan Unilever, Bajaj Auto, Cipla, Nestle India, HCL Technologies and Infosys were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,050 shares closed higher while 532 ended lower on the BSE.