Indian Shares Bounce Back After Massive Fall, Banks And Auto Outperform

Riding on an overall positive sentiment the stock market finally bounced back and ended in the green on Monday, March 1 after the February 26 blood bath witnessed on a single trading day since May 2020. In the previous week, the markets ended lower on rising bond yields and fears of inflation in the global markets. The indices on March 1 came out of the correction phase and gained over one per cent, said, market experts. 

Recently, the government released the GDP (Gross Domestic Progress) figures for the third quarter ended December 31, 2020 where India clocked a 0.4 per cent growth after reporting massive declines in the first and the second quarter of the current financial year. Bond yields have also softened after a sudden surge and the U.S house also approved the $1.9 trillion stimulus package. All these factors have backed the investor sentiment today and helped the benchmark indices to climb, experts said. 

The BSE Sensex closed at 49,849.84 by adding 749 points and Nifty-50 ended higher by 249 points at 14778.85. 29 shares have advanced in the BSE index and 49 shares advanced in the NSE index. Overall, 1162 shares have advanced in the NSE.  

Energy stocks continued to surge higher on Monday and also made it to the top gainers of the index. Shares of Power Grid Corp and ONGC added over six per cent in the intraday trade. Grasim, UPL, Asian Paints and Kotak Mahindra were among the other top gainers. Shares of HDFC, HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank and Infosys contributed the most to the index today. HDFC added 2.96 per cent; HDFC Bank gained 1.76 per cent and Kotak Bank gained 3.62 per cent.  

On the sectoral front, all sectors closed with gains except for Nifty PSU Bank. Banks, IT and FMCG gained the most among all other sectors. The Nifty Bank index ended at 35,296, up 492 points. However, the PSU Bank index closed red as shares of Central Bank and Bank of Baroda dragged the most.  

The Auto sector was in major focus today and it outperformed as well after the sector released positive figures on sales for the month of February. TVS Motors and Hero Motocorp gained over three per cent each on strong sales.  

Vinod Nair from Geojit Financial Services, said, “Domestic markets kick-started the month on a strong footing with increased optimism led by GDP reaching positive numbers, improving auto numbers and steady PMI manufacturing data. The auto sector was in focus today as the sales numbers for February were in favour of manufacturers.”

On the broader market front, BSE Smallcap and Midcap index gained 1.61 and 1.46 per cent respectively. The Smallcap index today reached a fresh high of 20,490.59.

Going further, analysts from leading brokerage houses say that Tomorrow (March 2, 2021) will be an important day in the markets because if the Nifty index crosses 14830-14850, it will be positive for the upside progress and negative if it goes below 14600.