Benchmark indices staged a stellar rally in the first trading session of 2022, led by gains in banking and auto stocks amid a spike in Covid-19 cases.
Sensex ended 929 points higher at 59,183 and Nifty rallied 271 points to 17,625.
Bajaj Finance was the top Sensex gainer, rising 3.50 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank. Dr Reddy's, M&M, Tech Mahindra and Nestle India were the only Sensex losers falling up to 1.13%.
BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices rose 274 points to 25,244 and 350 points to 29,807, respectively.
Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Head of Technical Research, Sharekhan said, "The Nifty had surpassed a falling trendline as well as the 40 DEMA on December 31. It was indicating that the bulls were having an upper hand. As a result, the positive momentum continued on January 3. Consequently, the index reached a crucial level of 17,600. We need to see whether the index sustains above 17,600. If it does so then the index can target 18,000 going ahead. The hourly chart shows that the entire recovery is panning out in a rising channel. The lower channel line along with the key hourly moving averages i.e. 17400 will now take the role of a crucial short term support."
Market cap of BSE-listed firms rose to Rs 269.49 lakh crore today. On the sectoral front, banking, auto, metal and IT shares led the gains. BSE bankex zoomed 1030 points, BSE auto index gained 355 points , BSE metal climbed 408 points and IT index rallied 350 points.
The market breadth was positive with 2,689 shares ending higher against 875 stocks in the red.134 shares were unchanged.
Auto shares led the gains with Nifty Auto index, rising to a three week high. The strong rally came after automakers reported a good set of sales in the last month.
Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart Ltd said, "In terms of cues, we don't have any major trigger tomorrow other than updates related to Covid while the minutes of the US Fed meeting will be out on Wednesday. If we look at the profile of the stocks which rallied today then we can expect some buying figures by FIIs."
India recorded 33,750 new COVID-19 cases and 123 deaths in the last 24 hours, raising the total death toll to 4,81,893, as per data released by the Ministry of Health on January 3, 2022. The active cases stood at 1,45,582.
On the last trading day of 2021, Sensex rallied over 450 points led by strong gains in Maruti, SBI and Bajaj Finance. Sensex gained 459.50 points to end at 58,253 and Nifty rose 150 points to 17,354.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth Rs 575 crore on December 31, and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) lapped up shares worth Rs 1,165 crore, as per provisional data available on NSE.
Global markets
In early trading, Frankfurt's DAX gained 0.8% to 16,010.77 and the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.9% to 7,213.57.
On Wall Street, futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.4% higher. On Friday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% and the Dow slid 0.2%. The Nasdaq fell 0.6%.
In Asian trading, Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.5% to 23,274.75 and the Kospi in South Korea rose 0.4% to 2,988.77.