Pharma and FMCG Stocks Drive Sensex, Nifty

The equity markets bounced back positive on Thursday, September 2 after a sharp profit booking in the previous session. At 10:06 AM, the Sensex was up 129.55 points at 57,467.76, and the Nifty-50 was at 17,119.10, up 42.85 points.

Advances in Pharma and FMCG stocks led the indices higher in the morning trade on Thursday. Shares of Dr Reddys Labs and HUL were the top gainers of Sensex, advancing over two per cent each. TCS, ITC, Titan Company, and UltraTech Cement were other top gainers, adding over a per cent each.

However, on the flipside, Bajaj Finance, HCL Tech, Bajaj Auto, and Asian Paints were the top losers of the pack as they declined nearly a per cent each in the morning trade.

On the other hand, the broader markets were trading higher in comparison with the headline indices as both BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices gained more than 150 points and the BSE Midcap also logged its new record high of 24,273.25. Shares of Adani Power(+4.98 per cent), Hindustan Aeron(+4.54 per cent), and Natco Pharma(+3.77 per cent) were the top gainers in the Midcap space.

Moving ahead, experts feel that on the domestic side, improving macro-economic data and rising pace of vaccination is encouraging, thus the long term trend continues to remain positive. Furthermore, the FIIs have also turned net buyers in the last few sessions which is a good signal for the Indian equity markets, experts added.

As per the provisional data available on the exchanges, foreign institutional investors net bought shares worth Rs 666.66 crore, while domestic institutional investors net sold shares worth Rs 1,287.87 crore in the Indian equity market on September 1.

In the overall market breadth at the time of filing in the NSE, 1257 shares gained and 440 shares declined.