NEW DELHI, Feb 16
Stock market firmly held gains through the day on Friday as the Nifty 50 closed at 22,040.70, up 130 points, or 0.59% while the Sensex closed with a gain of 376 points, or 0.52%, at 72,426.64.
The market benchmarks extended their gains into the fourth consecutive session.
Though analysts expect the rally to extend further in the absence of any major triggers overseas, they caution investors against overstretched valuations. Broader markets outperformed benchmarks as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices surged up to 0.5%.
Barring Nifty PSU Bank and Oil & Gas indices, all other sectors participated in the upsurge. Nifty Auto emerged as the top sectoral performer as it gained over 2%, followed by Nifty Realty, Pharma, and IT indices.
BSE Midcap index rose 0.78% while the Smallcap index clocked a gain of 0.68%. All sectoral indices, except for Nifty Oil & Gas (down 0.61%) and PSU Bank (down 0.36%), closed higher.
Nifty Auto jumped 2.21% to close as the top sectoral gainer. Nifty Pharma (up 1.63%), Realty (up 1.53%) and IT (up 1.26%) clocked significant gains. The Nifty Bank rose 0.36%.
The largecaps that aided the upmove included Wipro, M&M and SBI Life, each of which closed 4% higher. L&T, Maruti, Infosys, Tata Motors were other winners, while Adani Ports rose 3% and ended among the top Nifty gainers. On the flip side, Power Grid, SBI, Reliance, NTPC, Britannia and Axis Bank were among the frontline losers.
Notably, crisis-ridden Paytm snapped its three-day decline to close at the 5% upper circuit after Business Standard reported that RBI curbs on Paytm Payments Bank may have limited impact as 90% of the app’s UPI?accounts are linked with other banks.
Wipro, Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M), SBI, Bajaj Auto and Apollo Hospitals Enterprises, closed among the top gainers in the Nifty 50 index this week. ITC, Hindalco Industries, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever and Tata Steel declined on the weekly scale.
SpiceJet soared 11 per cent after promoter Ajay Singh with Busy Bee Airways Private Limited, submitted a bid to acquire the bankrupt airline GoFirst.
