Sensex closes marginally higher, Nifty ends flat; Yes Bank, SBI, ICICI among top gainers

Mumbai: Domestic equity benchmarks eked out modest gains after a see-saw session on Friday as investors stuck to select banking and IT stocks following encouraging results. The 30-share BSE Sensex swung over 523 points before settling 37.67 points, or 0.10 percent, higher at 39,058.06. The broader NSE Nifty closed at 11,583.90, up by just 1.30 points or 0.01 percent. Both the key indices closed Hindu calendar year Samvat 2075 with smart gains. The Sensex rallied 4,066.15 points or 11.62 percent, while the Nifty soared 1,053.90 points or 10 percent in Samvat 2075. [caption id=“attachment_4437105” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] During the holiday-shortened week, the Sensex lost 240.32 points or 0.61 percent, and the Nifty slipped 77.95 points or 0.66 percent. Yes Bank was the top gainer in the Sensex pack on Friday, followed by SBI which rallied 7.19 percent after the lender reported a nearly six-fold jump in consolidated net profit for the second quarter ended September. ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, TCS, HCL Tech, Maruti, Bharti Airtel and Infosys too rose up to 3.18 percent. On the other hand, Tata Motors, Vedanta, HDFC, Kotak Bank, Hero MotoCorp and NTPC tumbled up to 4.87 percent. “As the result season has started so the market may wait for any significant change in the overall outlook and so is expected to trade within a broad range of 11,000 to 11,700 for the coming days. “The impact of results will be seen on individual stocks and as a sector, auto, realty and big private banks are expected to perform better than the rest of the market as they are likely to see recovery in sales from this quarter. “For the start of Samvat 2076, the stock market scene is more uncertain than it was in the last few years. I expect the market to be a lot more volatile in Samvat 2076 and that will filter out weaker and fragile businesses from the market,” said Romesh Tiwari, Head of Research, CapitalAim. Sectorally, BSE bankex, IT, teck, realty, oil and gas, finance and healthcare indices ended up to 1.07 percent higher. On the other hand, consumer durables, telecom, industrials, power, utilities and capital goods declined up to 1.78 percent. Broader BSE midcap index ended on a flat note, while BSE smallcap index slipped 0.39 percent. Globally, equities were held back by mixed corporate earnings and fresh uncertainties on the Brexit front. In Asia, bourses in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul ended on a mixed note. Markets in Europe were trading in the red in their respective early deals. Meanwhile, the Indian rupee appreciated 12 paise to 70.90 against the US dollar intra-day. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, slipped 0.18 percent to $61.56 per barrel.