Equity indices concluded broadly in green on Wednesday. The BSE Sensex closed above 61000 and NSE Nifty 50 above 18150. The top gainers of the BSE Sensex were Tata Steel (up 2.72%), Larsen & Toubro (up 2.41%), HDFC (up 1.85%), Wipro (up 1.78%) and HDFC Bank (up 1.76%) while Tata Motors (down 1.65%), UltraTech Cement (down 1.28%), IndusInd Bank (down 0.67%), Nestle India (down 0.53%) and Bajaj Finserv (down 0.46%) were the losers. “Nifty rose for the second consecutive session on Jan 18 driven by positive Asian cues and dovish signals from Bank of Japan this morning. Metal stocks continued to rise post China reopening. Broad market indices rose less than the Nifty even as the advance decline ratio was up at 1.2:1. Nifty has managed to build on the gains of the previous day. Now it could face resistance from 18265 while 18049-18072 band could provide support,” said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.
Indian stock market
The BSE Sensex rose 390.02 pts or 0.64% to close at 61,045.74 and the Nifty 50 climbed 112.05 pts or 0.61% to 18,165.35. In the sectoral indices, Bank Nifty rose 0.55%, Nifty IT advanced 0.41%, and Nifty Pharma increased 0.66%. Among individual stocks, ICICI Lombard General Insurance shares fell 6% intraday, closing at Rs 1199.00, down 4.09% after the company reported a 29% on-year fall in standalone profit at Rs 220.63 crore for the quarter ended December FY23.
Asian Markets
Asian markets closed in the green territory on Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 652.44 pts or 2.50% to 26,791.12, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 100.36 pts or 0.47% to 21,678.00 and China’s Shanghai Composite index ended flat, rising 0.16 pts to 3,224.41.
European Markets
The majority of European stocks were trading higher on Wednesday. England’s FTSE100 was trading at 7,855.58, down 4.42 pts or 0.06% at 3:15 PM (IST). Europe’s Euronext100 was up 0.29 pts or 0.02% at 1,323.98. France’s CAC was trading 2.87 pts or 0.04% higher at 7,080.03. Germany’s DAX was down 18.65 pts or 0.12% at 15,168.42.
US Markets
The US markets concluded Tuesday’s session on a mixed note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) crashed 1.14% or 391.76 pts to 33,910.85, the S&P 500 fell 8.12 pts or 0.20% to 3,990.97 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 15.96 pts or 0.14% to 11,095.11.
Rupee movement
The Indian rupee appreciated 0.57% to 81.30 against the US dollar at 3:20 PM (IST).
Gold, Silver
Gold futures on the multi-commodity exchange for February delivery were trading at 56370.00 up 18 points or 0.03%. Silver futures for March delivery were down 404 points or 0.58% at 69590.00 at 3:20 PM (IST).
Crude oil
WTI Crude futures for February delivery were up 1.56% at $81.43 and Brent Crude futures for March delivery were trading 1.25% higher at $86.99 at 3:23 PM (IST).
Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin (BTC) at 3:25 PM (IST) was trading at $21,231.46, up by 0.22% in the last 24 hours. Its total market cap is $408,978,615,063. Ethereum (ETH) was trading at $1,577.70, up by 0.76% in the last 24 hours. It has a total market cap of $193,066,346,738.