Sensex zooms 750 points, Nifty above 14,550 despite record surge in Covid-19 cases

Sensex rose over 700 points in early trade today led by gains in banking stocks. The rise in the equity market came despite India reporting 3,52,991 new coronavirus cases and 2812 deaths in last 24 hours.

Sensex gained 750 points to 48,634 and Nifty climbed 216 points to 14,557. Top Sensex gainers were ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Ultratech Cement rising up to 5%. Top Sensex losers were HCL Tech, Tech Mahindra and Sun Pharma falling up to 2.75%.

On Friday, the 30-share index fell 202 points to 47,878 and Nifty lost 64.80 points to 14,341, tracking losses in consumer durables and IT stocks.  

Top sectoral gainers in today's trade were banking, auto and consumer durables stocks. BSE bankex was trading 929 points higher at 36,952. Bank Nifty too rose 732 points to 32,459 in trade today.

Stocks in news: ICICI Bank, HCL Tech, SBI Card, Tech Mahindra and more

Market cap of BSE-listed firms rose to Rs 204.56 lakh crore in early trade. India VIX , the market's  volatility gauge, climbed 2.56% to 23.27 on Monday, signalling rising volatility on Sensex and Nifty.

Market breadth was positive with 1,839 stocks ending higher against 761 falling on BSE. 164 stocks were unchanged in trade today.

Asian markets

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 added 0.3% to 29,120.12 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong edged less than 0.1% higher to 29,093.33. In Seoul, the Kospi jumped 0.8% to 3,209.85. The Shanghai Composite index rose 0.2% to 3,480.68, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 edged 3 points lower to 7,057.00. Shares fell in Jakarta but rose in Taiwan and Singapore.