The Indian equity benchmarks, which were trading cautiously amid uncertainty over the out-of-turn Reserve Bank of India meeting on November 3, picked up speed in the last hour on better-than-expected results from the index heavyweight Maruti Suzuki.
At close, the 30-pack BSE Sensex was up 203 points, or 0.34 percent, at 59,960, while the broader Nifty gained 49.85 points, or 0.28 percent, to close at 17,887.
Despite negative global cues, the Indian market managed to close in the green on the back of strong quarterly earnings by the index heavyweights.
“Gains in index heavyweights helped the domestic market to withstand its gains despite negative trends in its global peers as US tech stocks had a significant sell-off following disappointing quarterly results and a bleak forecast”, said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.
"A stronger rupee along with a softening treasury yield and decent Q2 earnings results are supporting the domestic market in the near term,” he said.
Stocks and sectors
Despite a strong closing, strength was missing across sectors. Barring Nifty auto and oil & gas, all sectoral indices ended the day in the red.
Strong quarterly showing by Maruti Suzuki pushed the auto index higher by 1.63 percent, while oil & gas index gained over a percent.
India’s largest passenger car manufacturer reported a four-fold increase in its standalone net to Rs 2,061.5 crore. The Maruti Suzuki stock closed 5.6 percent higher at Rs 9,548 on the National Stock Exchange.
Nifty metal and pharma were the top losers, down 1.4 percent each. The Nifty IT was down under a percent. Banks, financials and realty lost close to 0.5 percent each.
Maruti Suzuki, Reliance, Apollo Hospital, NTPC and Hero Motocorp were the top Nifty gainers, up 1.5 to 5.6 percent.
The top losers included Tech Mahindra, Tata Steel, Grasim, Sun Pharma and Divis Labs, ending 2 to 2.5 percent lower.
On the BSE, the auto index was the top gainer, up 1.66 percent and the energy index was up 1.2 percent. The BSE oil & gas index gained 0.76 percent.
The metal index was the worst sector on BSE, losing 1.44 percent, while IT and Bankex were down 0.7 percent each.
The broader indices ended lower. The BSE midcap index lost 0.4 percent and the smallcap was down 0.6 percent.
A long build-up was seen in Maruti, Honeywell Automation and Reliance while a short build-up was seen in Balrampur Chini, SBI Card and SAIL.
Among stocks, a volume spike of 95 percent was seen in Honeywell Automation, 80 percent in BHEL and a spike of 50 percent in SBI Cards.
Outlook for October 31
Prashanth Tapse, Research Analyst, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd
Markets raced ahead as bulls were seen enthusiastic with immediate inter-week goal posts for the Nifty seen at the psychological 18000 mark. Above 18000, the Nifty will aim for its all-time high of 18,605.
The positive takeaway was the bulls shrugging off the almost certain fourth straight 75 basis point rate hike by the US Federal Reserve on November 2. For Nifty, the immediate hurdle is 18,100, while support at 17,407-17,589.
Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Head, Technical Research, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas
The Nifty has been trading near the 78.6 percent retracement of the entire September decline throughout the last week. The key Fibonacci level is near 17,800.
The hourly chart shows that the index is in process of forming a distribution near this key hurdle. The hourly momentum indicator has developed a negative divergence, which is a sign of exhaustion.
The overall structure shows that the next move down could be around the corner. Immediate support is at 17,720-17,700. Once that is breached, the index can tumble to 17,500 in the short term.
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