Indian equity indices surged in Monday’s trading session after opening on a flat note with a negative bias, shrugging off the Iran-Israel’s escalated tension. The NSE Nifty 50 was up 187 points, or 0.76%, at 24,905, while the BSE Sensex was up 570 points, or 0.70%, at 81,690. The Nifty IT Index is one of the stars in today’s session, up over 1.5%.
In line with the overall markets, Bank Nifty surged 208 points or 0.37% to 55,735. The Nifty Midcap 100 was up 96 points or 0.17% at 58,323.
“The uncertainty stemming from the Israel-Iran conflict has created a risk-off in global markets. The safe-haven buying is keeping gold firm, but the dollar continues to be weak. Interestingly, there is no panic in equity markets. Markets will be severely impacted only if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a huge spike in crude. This appears to be a low probability event now,” said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments.
“The battle lines are clear – bulls need to keep 24,462 intact and give us a daily close above 24,826, while bears need to protect this resistance level to have any chance of pushing the market lower. Risk assets are in the green this morning, not by much, but the fact that the weekend escalation hasn’t seen another opening slump is an indication that investors expect the crisis to de-escalate,” said Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research at Axis Securities.
Here are key highlights from the early session-
Top performers leading the charge
Among the top gainers on the Nifty 50 were Power Grid Corp, Cipla, BEL, Bharti Airtel, and Asian Paints. The top movers in the Nifty 50 were HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel, Infosys, L&T, and Reliance Industries as soon as markets opened.
Stocks in the red
The stocks that remained under pressure included Tata Motors, Dr Reddy’s Lab, Sun Pharma, M&M, and Jio Financial Services were the laggards in the morning trade.
Israel-Iran conflict
Israel launched a fresh series of strikes against Iran on Monday, hitting missile facilities after Tehran executed deadly overnight assaults, with both parties warning of further destruction. Red alert sirens began to sound in several areas of Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, with the IDF warning its defence was “not hermetic.”