Sensex jumps 186 pts on gains in Reliance, Airtel; market breadth stays weak

NEW DELHI: Led by gains in index heavyweights Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank, BSE benchmark Sensex staged a fag-end rally on Tuesday. The global market setup remained positive amid hopes of a resolution in US-China trade war.

The 30-share pack settled the day 186 points or 0.46 per cent higher at 40,470 while NSE Nifty ended just shy of the 11,950-mark, up 56 points or 0.47 per cent higher at 11,940.

On BSE, the advance-decline ratio continued to remain in favour of the bears, indicating underlying weakness in the market.


Broader market too remained weak, with both midcap and smallcap indices underperforming benchmark Sensex. BSE Midcap shut shop 0.05 per cent lower while BSE Smallcap rose 0.30 per cent.

Market at a glance
In the Sensex kitty of stocks, only 11 ended in the green while the rest in the red. Bharti Airtel, up 7.36 per cent, was the biggest index gainer. It was followed by Reliance Industries, Axis Bank, Power Grid, Tech Mahindra and SBI.

Shares of RIL scaled all-time high at Rs 1,514.95 with firm's market capitalisation crossing Rs 9.50 lakh crore mark.

On the other hand, shares of YES Bank tanked 2.66 per cent and was the top loser. Firm promoters Rana Kapoor, Morgan Credits and YES Capital sold remaining 0.8 per cent stake in the private lender. The promoter entities now hold a token 900 shares in the lender.

M&M, Tata Steel, TCS, Tata Motors and Vedanta were among other top index losers.

Among the main board stocks, shares of Vodafone Idea surged 35 per cent to Rs 6.02 on Tuesday after the firm said that it would hike tariffs from December onwards.

In the sectoral space, 11 of 19 BSE sectors ended in the green, with telecom leading the charge on the back of gains in Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel. BSE Telecom rose 8.52 per cent. It was followed by Energy that gained 2.38 per cent.

Metals and auto declined the most, shedding 0.94 per cent and 0.74 per cent, respectively.

Expert Take
“Market turned positive due to buoyancy from telecom stocks supported by tariff hike plans. Positive vibes also witnessed in PSU banks having exposure to distressed assets. Gains in Pharma, energy and infra stocks pushed markets higher while losses in Auto, metals and consumer stocks limited the gain. Fear of downgrade in FY20 earnings due to slow pace in consumption demand and industrial growth may consolidate the market in the near term,” -- Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services

Global Markets
World shares touched their highest in nearly two years on Tuesday as investors maintained bets that the US and China can reach a deal to end their damaging trade war. The world's two largest economies are in talks on an initial deal to end an 18-month trade dispute that has damaged supply chains and upset global markets, with Washington due to impose a new round of tariffs on Chinese goods from Dec. 15, Reuters reported.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, gained 0.1% to touch its highest since January last year. European shares also moved up, with the broad Euro STOXX 600 adding 0.4% to move to its highest since July 2015. Indexes in Frankfurt and London gained 0.4% and 0.5% respectively.