Dalal Street witnessed another day of gains on Thursday as strong support from IT and cement stocks helped frontline indices remain in positive territory for the second consecutive session. Notably, the broader market staged a sharp recovery after facing selling pressure in recent sessions.
The Nifty 50 ended 53.50 points higher, or with a 0.22% gain, at 23,205, while the Sensex finished the trade at 76,512, up 0.14%, or 107 points, than Wednesday's close. The Nifty Midcap 100 index jumped 1.86% to 54,098, and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index ended the session with a gain of 1.12% at the 17,364 level.
IT stocks continued their strong performance for the second day, with midcap and smallcap stocks outperforming. Stocks such as Coforge, Persistent Systems, and Zensar Technologies recorded gains of up to 11%, driven by impressive Q3 results.
Similarly, better-than-expected results from Ultratech Cement lifted sentiment across the cement sector, leading to strong gains in major counters. Shares of Ultratech Cement soared nearly 7%, while those of Kesoram Industries, JK Lakshmi Cement, JK Cement, and Grasim Industries all ended the session with gains of up to 5%.
Meanwhile, EMS stocks like Amber Enterprises, Dixon Technologies, and Kaynes Technology rebounded in trade after recent valuation concerns had kept them under pressure.
New-age tech stocks, including PB Fintech, FSN E-Commerce Ventures, and CarTrade Tech, saw healthy buying interest during the session, although they remain up to 30% below their recent peaks. The recent entrant on the exchanges, Go Digit General Insurance saw its shares jump 15% to ₹327 apiece after the company reported a nearly three-fold rise in its net profit to ₹119 crore in Q3FY25.
Commenting on today's market performance, Prashanth Tapse of Mehta Equities said, "Markets were range-bound with a mixed bias intra-day and ended slightly higher as investors resorted to select buying in the beaten-down IT, telecom, and realty shares."
"The sharp fall in rupee against the dollar, which has been fuelling foreign fund outflows over the past few months, is making investors jittery. With the ongoing corporate earnings outcome not so encouraging so far and the Budget around the corner, investors will play safe bets with a selective buying approach and mostly looking at global markets for cues," he added.
Vinod Nair of Geojit Financial Services said, “Uncertainty lingers over Trump's trade tariff measures-- will they affect global trade, instigate higher inflation, and currency volatility?" The upcoming Budget has a muted expectation, he noted.
Rupak De of LKP Securities said, "Following a positive start, the trading session on Thursday remained muted, with the index showing limited movement. It failed to break above the 50 EMA on the hourly chart, indicating selling pressure at higher levels. The bearish trend is likely to persist as long as the index stays below 23,400. On the downside, support levels are observed at 23,150 and 23,000."
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