Union Budget 2022: Sensex opens 658 pts higher, Nifty crosses 17,500; ICICI Bank, Infosys, Maruti top gainers

Benchmark indices opened higher ahead of FM  Nirmala Sitharaman's fourth consecutive Budget speech today. Sensex rose 658 points to 58,672 and Nifty gained 190 points to 17,529. Positive global cues also led to upbeat sentiment on Dalal Street today.

ICICI Bank,  Infosys, Maruti and HDFC were the top Sensex gainers, rising up to 1.91%. PowerGrid and ITC were the only Sensex losers, falling up to 0.39 per cent. Market cap of BSE-listed firms rose to Rs 266.98 lakh crore today.

Budget 2022 Market LIVE: Sensex zooms 600 pts, Nifty above 17,500; Tata Steel gains 2%

Market breadth was positive with 1,912 shares rising against 795  falling on BSE. 68 shares were unchanged.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services  said, "The smart rebound in global markets led by the US and budget expectations have fuelled a late pre-Budget rally. But the relentless selling by FIIs is likely to put a cap to the rally in the short to medium term."

Number of stocks that hit their 52-week highs stood at 106 and those falling to their 52-week lows came at 6.

India VIX, the stock market's volatility index, fell 0.91% to 21.75 in early trade

On Monday, Sensex zoomed 813 points to 58,014 and Nifty rose 237 points to 17,339. IT and consumer durables shares were the top sectoral gainers with  the BSE IT index rising 911 points and BSE consumer durables index gaining 1,020 points in the previous session. Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Bajaj Finserv and Infosys were the top Sensex gainers, rising up to 4.88%.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 3,624 crore on January 31, and domestic institutional investors (DIIs) lapped up shares worth Rs 3,648 crore, as per provisional data available on NSE.

Global markets

In Asia, Kospi was trading 48 points higher at 2,663. Nikkei rose 192 points to 27,194 and Hang Seng index zoomed 252 points to 23,802. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 83 points to 4,515. The Dow fell climbed 406 points to 36,131. The Nasdaq Composite rallied 469 points to 14,239.