By Urvashi Valecha
Indian equities gained for the third straight session on Wednesday with the sentiment firming up in sync with global cues. The benchmarks put on close to 1.85% to end the session at seven-week highs and are now up by about 25-26% from their March 23 lows.
Interestingly, foreign portfolio investors (FPI), who were big sellers in March pulling out more than $8 billion, and have offloaded shares for most of April, turned buyers picking up some $50 million worth of stocks.
Though bankers are putting aside provisions for the disruption due to the pandemic and forecasting slow growth in 2020-21, banking stocks have done well; the Bank Nifty surging 22.18% since March 23.
Ahead of the monthly expiry for derivatives on Thursday, the turnover in the F&O segment of the NSE was a decent Rs 11.78 lakh crore compared with the six-month daily average of Rs 14.42 lakh crore. Cash market volumes were high at Rs 50,396 crore compared with the six-month daily average of Rs 39,134 crore.