Closing Bell: Indian market ends higher in a volatile trading session, Nifty regains 17800

Domestic equity bourses switched between positive and negative in a volatile session on Friday before finishing the session higher.

The Indian equity market rose on the last trading day of the week, in highly volatile trade led by gains in banking and metal stocks as caution prevailed among participants globally amid increasing cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. During today's trade, Sensex swung more than 700 points, before settling in green.

At the closing bell on January 7, the Sensex was up 142.81 points or 0.24% at 59,744.65, and the Nifty was up 66.80 points or 0.38% at 17,812.70. On the market breadth, around 1910 shares have advanced, 1235 shares declined, and 78 shares are unchanged.

Among the top gainers of the day were Grasim Industries, ONGC, Hindalco Industries, HDFC Life and Shree Cements. Top losers in a choppy trading day were M&M, Bajaj Finserv, L&T, Bajaj Finance and HDFC.

On the sectoral basis, Bank, Metal, FMCG, Oil & Gas indices were up 0.5-1%, while selling was seen in the Auto, Capital Goods and Pharma stocks. In the broader markets, BSE midcap and smallcap indices ended in the green.

The trending stock of the day was Grasim Industries which rallied 4.61% to Rs 1,799.95. ONGC, Hindalco, HDFC Life and Shree Cement also led with handsome gains.

On the 30-share BSE platform, Asian Paints, TCS, Nestle India, UltraTech Cements, ICICI Bank, Hindustan Unilever, HDFC and Reliance Industries attracted the most gains with their shares rising as much as 1.79%. Top BSE gainers included Bajaj Finserv, M&M, Titan, Bajaj Finance, Airtel and Dr Reddy's.

Ujjivan Small Finance Bank share price jumped over 8% intraday on Friday after the company reported 22% year-on-year growth in its loan book for the quarter ended December 31, 2021.