Gains in metals and financial stocks helped Indian shares rise for the third straight session on Wednesday, with frontline indices rising 2-3 percent. Sensex surged over 1,000 points for the fourth time in 2021.

Share Market Live

NSE

Indian equities have gained more than 1 percent every day this week, following an expansion of the country's vaccination drive and upbeat domestic economic growth, while easing bond yields also boosted risk appetite.

The Sensex ended 1147.76 points or 2.28 percent higher at 51,444 while the Nifty rose 322.30 points or 2.16 percent to settle at 15,241.40. Broader markets also surged during the day with the midcap and smallcap indices up 1.76 and 0.99 percent, respectively.

43 Nifty stocks ended their day in green, while Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv, Reliance, Bajaj Finance, UPL were the top gainers. Hero MotoCorp, Maruti, Bajaj Auto, M&M, BPCL were the top losers on Nifty50.

All the sectors ended in the green, except for Nifty Auto that lost 0.66 percent. Nifty Metal and PSU Bank ended 3 percent higher, while Nifty Bank and Financial Services surged over 2.6 percent. Nifty IT and Realty were trading over 1.5 percent higher. While the sectoral indices closed higher, the volatility index dropped over 6 percent.

India’s Nifty Metal Index jumped over 3 percent to hit its one-year high on the backs of a surge in commodity prices and recovering demand as the supply remains slow and inventories running low.

BSE companies gained a market cap of nearly 4 lakh crore today and 10 lakh crore in three days. Both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel rose today as brokerages see both the companies gaining market share. MTNL rose to an upper circuit, while IDBI Bank surged over 12 percent on the government's asset sale plans.

Shares of IRCON International fell over 7 percent on Wednesday as the company kicked off a 2-day offer for sale for up to 16 percent stake of the government. The stock fell as much as 7.4 percent to its day's low of Rs 90.60 per share on the BSE.

Axis Securities raised December 2021 Nifty50 target to 17,200, indicating a 7 percent upside on the back of strong December-quarter earnings, solid structural trends, continued FII inflows and positive market sentiment. "Even though the month saw a higher volatility than the long-term average, the market trend was constructive. The trend across the core sectors was very strong during the month which is a significant positive," it said.

Market breadth continues to favour advances and the advance-decline ratio is 2:1.

First Published:Mar 3, 2021 3:35 PM IST