NEW DELHI: The government’s decision to start a phased reopening of the economy cheered investors on Dalal Street as they flocked to buy equities in Monday’s session, taking benchmark indices higher. Strong global market mood too helped the sentiment back home.
The Centre set out a three-phase “unlock” plan that will permit reopening of malls, hotels and restaurants, inter-state travel and religious places and also allow unrestricted movement of persons and goods inter and intra-state in the first phase of the reopening.
At 9.58 am, BSE flagship Sensex was up 907 points or 2.80 per cent to 33,331 while NSE benchmark Nifty advanced 259 points or 2.71 per cent to 9,839.
“The Nifty played opened with a jubilant gap up above 9,700 and achieved 9,800 in no time. We should now be trading for 9,950-10,000 levels. The new support range for this market would be 9,450-9,500,” said Manish Hathiramani, proprietary index trader and technical analyst, Deen Dayal Investments.
Agencies
In the 30-share pack Sensex, all shares were trading in the green with bank stocks at the forefront of the rally. Tata Steel was the biggest gainer, up 6.69 per cent at Rs 315 while Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank added 3-6 per cent.
IDBI Bank, which came back into the black after 13 quarters of losses, leaped 18 per cent to Rs 24. The company reported Rs 135 crore in net profits in the March quarter.
All sectoral indices on NSE were trading with gains. Nifty Metal was the biggest gainer, up 4.05 per cent followed by Nifty Private Bank that added 3.63 per cent. Nifty Realta nd Nifty Bank also added over 3 per cent each.
Broader market indices were playing catchup with their headline peers as Nifty Smallcap added 2.30 per cent while Nifty Midcap gained 1.97 per cent. Broadest index on NSE, Nifty 500 was up 2.25 per cent.
Globally, Asian shares pushed to three-month highs as progress on opening up economies helped offset jitters over riots in US cities and unease over Washington’s power struggle with Beijing.
There was also relief that while President Donald Trump began the process of ending special US treatment for Hong Kong to punish China, he left their trade deal intact.
After a cautious start Asian markets were led higher by China on signs parts of the domestic economy were picking up. Hong Kong managed to rally 3.6 per cent, while Chinese blue chips put on 2.2 per cent.
That helped lift MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan 2.1 per cent to its highest since early March. Japan’s Nikkei added 1.1 per cent to also reach a three-month peak.
E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 recovered to be up 0.1 per cent, having been down 1 per cent in early trade. EUROSTOXX 50 futures firmed 1.4 per cent and FTSE futures 1.2 per cent.
