Closing Bell: Sensex jumps by 1041 points; Nifty reclaims 16900

Domestic equity bourses Sensex and Nifty settled in the green territory on Thursday, closing at a 3-month high, led by a recovery in financial services, information technology and index heavyweight Reliance Industries stocks.

The Indian equity market soared for the second consecutive day on Thursday, led by a strong surge in technology and financial stocks. Most of the Asian stock market made cautious gains as investors sensed a possible downshift in the pace of U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. On Wednesday, the Fed raised rates by 75 basis points (bps). But its chair Jerome Powell assured guidance on the size of the next interest rate hike and said that at some point, it would be appropriate to go slower. US stock futures, however, indicated a lower start for the Wall Street market. Owing to these developments, Indian indices finished higher for the second consecutive day on July 28 with the Nifty reclaiming 16900.

At the closing bell on July 28, the Sensex was up 1,041.47 points or 1.87% at 56,857.79, and the Nifty was up 287.80 points or 1.73% at 16,929.60. On the market breadth, 1865 shares have advanced, 1389 shares declined, and 141 shares are unchanged.

Top Nifty gainers of the day were Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank and SBI Life Insurance, while major losers included Shree Cements, Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement, Cipla and Bajaj Auto.

On the sectoral basis, Bank, IT, Metal, Power and Realty up 1-2%. In the broader markets, the BSE Midcap index added nearly 1% and smallcap index rose 0.6%.

Among the top trending stocks, Bajaj Finance was the top Nifty gainer as the stock jumped 10.46% to Rs 7,065.50 after the non-bank lender's Q1 profit more than doubled to Rs 2,596 crore.