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The Indian equity benchmarks moved higher on Wednesday led by gains in index heavyweights like Infosys, Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and UltraTech Cement. The Sensex rose as much as 305 points to hit an intraday high of 60,334 and Nifty 50 index was trading above its important psychological level of 17,950.
As of 9:23 am, the Sensex was up 232 points at 60,260 and Nifty index advanced 68 points to 17,956.
Global shares hovered at record highs while currency markets and U.S. Treasuries were steady on Wednesday, as investors looked to the expected winding down of pandemic-era monetary stimulus in the world’s largest economy.
The Federal Reserve is expected to announce the tapering of its $120 billion-a-month asset purchase programme in its policy statement at 1800 GMT. Ahead of the much anticipated meeting, Asian shares failed to follow a strong lead from Wall Street.
Markets are almost certain the Fed will taper but are looking to see if policymakers will give any hints about the possibility of interest rate hikes next year.
Back home, buying was visible across the board as all the 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Realty index’s nearly 2 per cent gain. Nifty IT, Financial Services, Metal, PSU Bank and Oil & Gas indices also rose between 0.5-0.8 per cent.
On the other hand, Pharma, Healthcare and Media shares were witnessing selling pressure.
Mid- and small-cap shares were trading mixed as Nifty Midcap 100 index advanced 0.6 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 100 index added 0.1 per cent.
SBI Life was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 2.4 per cent to Rs 1,195. tech Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, NTPC, State Bank of India, Indian Oil, UPL, Hindalco, Wipro, Kotak Mahindra Bank and UltraTech Cement also rose between 0.7-1.7 per cent.
On the flipside, Sun Pharma, Divi’s Labs, Titan, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, Hero MotoCorp, Bharti Airtel and Bajaj Auto were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 1,792 shares were advancing while 789 were declining on the BSE.
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