Sensex Ends Higher By 260 Points Led By IT And Pharma Stocks

Dalal-street on Thursday, April 15 staged an 800 points recovery in a mixed trading session as the markets negated the afternoon trade losses to close higher backed by advances in Pharma and IT stocks. The frontline BSE index closed higher by 259.62 points at 48,803. with advances in 18 stocks out of 30, Nifty-50 closed at 14,581.45, up by 76.65 points.

Barring the choppy trend, Pharma and IT stocks marked gains as shares of TCS, Cipla and Wipro ended among the top gainers of the index on Thursday as they added over three per cent each in the day's trade.

"Pharma and IT could be safe defensive plays at this juncture", said VK Vijaykumar of Geojit Financial Services.

Further, banking stocks lent some support to the benchmarks as shares of ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank contributed over two per cent each and led the Sensex to close in the green territory amid volatility caused by Covid concerns. The Nifty Bank index closed higher by 341 points above 32,100.

On the flipside, Eicher Motors and Infosys ended among the top losers of the index as they plunged 3.26 and 2.61 per cent, respectively. Shares of Infosys declined heavily tracking an overnight fall in the company's ADR (American Depository Receipts).

In the overall market breadth, 1226 shares closed with gains, and 1661 shares marked losses.

However, experts still predict volatility in the market as the India VIX index which portrays volatility closed higher by 2.10 per cent on Thursday. Until the Covid cases witness a drop and the vaccination process moves rapidly, participants should remain cautious with their picks, said experts.

"The movement in the market is currently driven by the race between vaccination progress and concerns of lockdown in several states of the country", Vijaykumar added.

Among the global markets, the US markets closed with a mixed sentiment overnight, and the Asian markets were trading mixed too after Singapore's central bank retained its monetary policy stance as the policymakers found it appropriate amid a weak outlook for core inflation and continuing economic recovery.