Sensex zooms over 1,300 pts; Nifty reclaims 18k; banking stocks top gainers

Sensex surged over 1,300 points to reclaim the 60,000-level today, led by intense buying in banking and financial stocks after the announcement of merger between HDFC and HDFC Bank.

Strong global cues and receding crude oil prices also propped up the domestic equity markets, according to traders.

In the biggest merger in corporate history, India's largest housing finance company HDFC Ltd will merge with the country's largest private lender HDFC Bank to create a banking behemoth.

Shares of HDFC and HDFC Bank rallied nearly 10 per cent as investors lapped up the merger deal. Sensex closed 1,335.05 points or 2.25 per cent higher at 60,611.74 and Nifty jumped 382.95 points or 2.17 per cent to close at 18,053.40.

Share Market updates: Sensex zooms 1,335 pts; HDFC, HDFC Bank top gainers

Shares of HDFC Bank surged 9.97 per cent to Rs 1,656.45, while HDFC Ltd jumped 9.30 per cent to Rs 2,678.90. Other Sensex gainers were Kotak Bank, HUL, L&T, IndusInd Bank and Sun Pharma, rising up to 3.32%.

On the other hand, Infosys and Titan were the only laggards, falling up to 1.05%.

 Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities said,"Nifty has moved up above 18000 smartly following a sustained trade above the previous consolidation on the daily chart. Besides, the price has moved above 200DEMA on the daily timeframe. The near-term trend looks positive from here. On the higher end, the index may move towards the falling trend line on the daily chart. The immediate resistance is visible near 18150. On the lower end, support is visible at 17,800".

BSE mid cap and small cap indices rose 335 points and 483 points, respectively. Banking stocks were the top sectoral gainers with BSE bankex zooming 1471 points to 44067, followed by BSE capital goods index rising 498 points today.

All 19 BSE sectoral indices closed in the green. The market breadth was positive with 2,721 shares ending higher against 674 stocks in the red. 106 shares were unchanged.

Market cap of BSE-listed firms rose to Rs 272.41 lakh crore.

The equity market ended higher in the first session of the new fiscal on Friday. Sensex rose 708 points to 59,276 and Nifty ended 205 points higher at 17,670.

NTPC, PowerGrid, IndusInd Bank, SBI, HDFC and M&M were the top gainers, rising up to 5.93% . Tech Mahindra, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's, Titan and Infosys were the sole Sensex losers, falling up to 0.80%.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net buyers as they bought shares worth Rs 1909 crore on Friday, according to stock exchange data.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Shanghai closed with healthy gains. Stock exchanges in Europe were also trading significantly higher in mid-session deals. Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude declined 1.05 per cent to $103.29 per barrel.