Three large-cap stocks, namely, Sun Pharma, HDFC and Bajaj Finance were mostly responsible for holding Sensex in green today after yesterday’s 458-point fall, and despite the fears of the economic fallout of China’s coronavirus. After opening sharply higher on Tuesday, Sensex and Nifty pared gains to trade flat with a positive bias in the noon session. S&P BSE Sensex was up 42 points at 41,197 and Nifty was ruling at 12,129 points. As many as 13 out of 30 Sensex stocks were trading in green, with Sun Pharma and HDFC up over 2 per cent; Bajaj Finance and Hero MotoCorp up over 1.5 per cent; HDFC Bank up nearly 1 per cent; and M&M up over half a per cent. Hero MotoCorp, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, TCS, ONGC and Tech Mahindra were among the other gainers on the Sensex.
At 12.30 PM, the shares of HDFC were trading 2.72 per cent higher at Rs 2460.95 apiece on BSE after the company on Monday post market hours reported a 24.3 per cent rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 4,196.48 crore in the quarter ended December 31. However, on a standalone basis, the net profit jumped by nearly four times to Rs 8,372.49 crore from Rs 2,113.80 crore in same period of previous fiscal. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries was trading at Rs 459.70, up 2.53 per cent and Bajaj Finance was trading 1.89 per cent up at Rs 4,244.
On Monday, foreign institutional investors sold equities worth Rs 438.85 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) were net buyers to the tune of Rs 10.51 crore on a net basis, as per the provisional exchange data showed.