Sensex, Nifty break 5 day losing streak

Benchmark stock indices broke five-day’s losing streak on the back of strong global cues.

The S&P BSE Sensex gained 498.58 points or 0.64% to 78,540.17 led by gains in heavyweight, IT and banking stocks.

The top Sensex gainers included ITC (2.07%), Tech Mahindra (1.68%), HDFC Bank (1.63%), IndusInd Bank (1.58%), Reliance (1.33%) and Titan (1.16%).

The NSE Nifty-50 index too gained 166 points or 0.7% to 23,753.45 points.

NSE cash market volumes were lower by 22% as compared to average of last 10 days and lowest since October 11, 2024.

Nifty Midcap and smallcap Indices underperformed the Benchmark Indices where Nifty midcap 100 gained by 0.33% while Nifty Smallcap Index fell by 0.14.

“Declining shares outnumbered the advancing shares where advance decline ratio stood at 0.67 on BSE. Nifty Small cap 100 index has completed 50% retracement of the entire rise seen from November bottom (17367) to December top (19716) and it is now at a strong support,” said Devarsh Vakil- Deputy Head Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

“Amongst the sectoral Indices, Nifty Reality, Bank and PSU Bank gained the most while Nifty Media, Auto and Healthcare ended in the red. Combination of Friday’s fall with Monday’s pullback resulted in a bullish candlestick pattern on the Nifty daily chart,” he added.

Shrikant Chouhan, Head Equity Research, Kotak Securities said, “We believe that non-directional activity is likely to continue in the near future; hence, level-based trading would be the ideal strategy for day traders.”

Analysts said the markets surged following release of data which showed the U.S. Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of consumer price inflation, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, rose less than expected in November.

This helped ease concerns about the future trajectory of U.S. interest rates and contributed to positive sentiment across global markets, including the U.S. and Asia, they added.