Domestic market benchmarks - the Sensex and the Nifty - ended in the green on October 18, extending gains into the third consecutive session supported by positive global cues.
Markets in the US and Europe clocked gains on hopes of healthy corporate earnings.
"UK's main equity indexes hit their strongest levels in more than a week on Tuesday, boosted by the historic reversal of the government's unfunded tax cut plans and optimism over the earnings season that boosted US stocks overnight," reported news agency Reuters.
Sensex rose 550 points, or 0.94%, to end at 58,960.60 while the Nifty closed the day with a gain of 175 points, or 1.01%, at 17,486.95.
Mid and smallcaps also clocked healthy gains as the BSE Midcap index rose 1.06% while the Smallcap index closed 0.71% higher.
The overall market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms rose to ₹274.5 lakh crore from ₹271.7 lakh crore in the previous session, making investors richer by ₹2.8 lakh crore in a single day.
"In India, bulls are gaining strength aided by India’s growth outperformance, good early Q2 results, declining FII selling, steadily rising DII buying and the optimism ushered in by the festive season," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
Only five stocks - HDFC (down 0.72%), NTPC (down 0.68%), Tech Mahindra (down 0.24%), Sun Pharma (down 0.16%) and HDFC Bank (down 0.15%) - ended in the red in the 30-share Sensex index.
Shares of SBI (up 3.41%), ITC (up 2.39%) and Nestle (up 2.38%) ended as the top gainers in the Sensex kitty of stocks.
Among the sectoral indices, BSE Capital Goods, Realty, Services, Industrials and Auto rose up to 2%. Consumer Discretionary, Energy, FMCG, Telecom, Utilities, Power and Teck indices rose more than a percent each.
More than 130 stocks, including Coal India, Deepak Fertilizers and Petrochemicals Corporation, TVS Motor Company, Ujjivan Financial Services, City Union Bank, Federal Bank, IDFC First Bank and Indian Bank, hit their 52-week highs on BSE.
"The Indian market is sustaining its gains due to favourable global and domestic cues. Home-grown positivity is the downward trend of crude prices and upside prospects for Q2 corporate earnings. RBI’s confidence that headline inflation has peaked in September and subsequently will decline is taken cheerfully by the financial market, providing upside to banks," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
Crude oil prices dipped and the Brent Crude traded below the $95 a barrel mark. The rupee ended flat at 82.36 per dollar.
Technicals
Palak Kothari, Senior Technical Analyst at Choice Broking pointed out that the Nifty confirmed the 'piercing candle' formation on the daily chart which suggests strength in the counter. On an hourly chart, the index gave a breakout of ascending triangle formation, suggesting a northward journey in the counter.
"Nifty has given a closing above 21 DMA (daily moving average) as well as the middle band of 'Bollinger' which adds bullishness to the prices. On the open interest (OI) data, the highest Call OI was witnessed at 17,700, followed by 17,800 while the maximum Put OI was seen at 17,300," Kothari said.
"The daily momentum indicator MACD traded with a positive crossover and bounced from an oversold zone which suggests strength in the counter. The support for Nifty has shifted around 17,280 while on the upside, 17,600 may act as an immediate hurdle. The Nifty is looking strong on the charts. One can add quality stocks on dips for medium to long-term investment," said Kothari.
Key market data
Disclaimer: The views and recommendations given in this article are those of individual analysts. These do not represent the views of MintGenie.
