After a sharp rebound in the early part of the trading session on Wednesday, benchmark indices struggled to hold their gains. There was some relief for IT stocks that had led the slide.
Amid persistent volatility, the Sensex opened nearly 300 points higher and hit an intraday high of 82,957.91, up 732 points or 0.89%. However, profit booking at higher levels erased the early gains, with the index falling over 800 points from the day’s high. It finally closed at 82,276.07, registering a marginal rise of 50.15 points or 0.06%.
“Indian markets opened with a gap-up, driven by upbeat global cues and a rebound in US tech stocks as AI-related uncertainty eased,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Investments.
The Nifty posted an intraday gain of 228 points to scale a intraday high of 25,652.60 but gave up most of the advance to end the day at 25,482.50, up 57.85 points or 0.23%.
Citrini Rebound
“The ongoing volatility leaves the Nifty range-bound in the short term between 25,300 and 25,700, with a decisive break in either direction likely to trigger the next meaningful move,” said Nandish Shah, Deputy Vice President, HDFC Securities.
Both the Sensex and Nifty had declined 1,068.74 points (1.28%) and 288.35 points (1.12%), respectively, on Tuesday.
After tumbling nearly 1,500 points, or 5%, on Tuesday following concerns raised by US-based Citrini Research, the 10-member Nifty IT Index rebounded on Wednesday, surging 946.25 points or 3.15% intraday. However, profit booking trimmed about half of the gains, and the index managed to close 473 points, or 1.57%, higher — marking its best single-day gain since January 16.
Market breadth remained marginally negative, with 2,131 losers against 2,065 gainers on the BSE. The broader BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap indices rose 0.79% and 0.31%, respectively. Investor wealth increased by Rs 1.74 lakh crore to Rs 467.38 lakh crore. The 10 IT stocks contributed nearly Rs 45,000 crore to the day’s market-cap gains.
Foreign portfolio investors and domestic institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 2,991.64 crore and Rs 5,118.57 crore, respectively, according to provisional BSE data.
Resistance at 25,600
Sectoral performance was mixed. Metal, pharma, and auto stocks posted the strongest gains, rising by up to 2.7%. On the other hand, PSU banks, FMCG, and realty stocks remained under pressure.
HCL Tech, Tata Steel, TCS, IndiGo, and Sun Pharma were the top Sensex gainers, rising by up to 2.80%. In contrast, Reliance Industries, SBI, Adani Ports, Eternal, and Bharti Airtel were among the top laggards, falling by up to 2.23%.