Bulls in control! Sensex, Nifty extend gains, jump over 1% led by RIL, banking stocks

Nifty Pharma emerged as the top performer among sectors

Indian benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty, extended their gains to trade at the day’s highest levels during the afternoon session on April 28, supported by a strong performance from index heavyweight Reliance Industries following its March quarter results. The overall market sentiment remained upbeat, with midcap and smallcap indices also joining the rally.

Around noon, the Sensex was up 1,020 points or 1.29 percent at 80,233, and the Nifty was up 288 points or 1.20 percent at 24,327. About 1,822 shares advanced, 1,536 shares declined, and 165 shares unchanged.

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Except for the Nifty IT and FMCG indices, all other sectoral indices were trading in positive territory. Nifty Pharma emerged as the top performer among sectors, with gains led by Sun Pharma, Divi’s Laboratories, Cipla, and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. Nifty Metal and Bank Nifty indices also performed well, gaining between 1 percent and 2 percent in intra-day trading.

The broad-based recovery across the market was largely driven by Reliance Industries, which impressed investors with its resilient performance in the March quarter. Brokerages reacted positively to the results, with the stock receiving several upgrades. Nuvama Institutional Equities placed the highest target price on Reliance Industries at Rs 1,708 per share.

As the fourth week of the Q4 results season begins, market expert Anshul Saigal told Moneycontrol that corporate earnings growth signals are mixed. He noted that while the IT sector started the earnings season on a cautious note, banks have reported better-than-expected numbers.

"At this time, we expect India Inc to post earnings growth of around 12-13 percent in FY26, and we suggest that investors start accumulating stocks with a long-term perspective," he added.

Pratik Gupta, CEO and co-head of Institutional Equities at Kotak Securities, also projects earnings growth of about 12 percent for FY26, though he cautioned that there could be downside risks.

"We are not overly bullish on the market, but valuations are no longer as expensive as they were before. Reliance Industries, in particular, looks attractive from a valuations standpoint compared to its peers. We expect overall earnings growth to pick up pace starting from the second half of FY26," he said in a conversation with CNBC-TV18.

Disclaimer: Moneycontrol is a part of the Network18 group. Network18 is controlled by Independent Media Trust, of which Reliance Industries is the sole beneficiary.

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