SENSEX climbs 511 pts, NIFTY50 above 26,000 in noon deals; Orient Tech, Bharat Forge, RITES among buzzing stocks

Benchmark indices, SENSEX and NIFTY50, continued trading in positive territory in the afternoon session on Wednesday, December 31, driven by a rally in metal stocks. Investor sentiment was further boosted as the government, on Tuesday, said that India has surpassed Japan to become the fourth-largest economy.

The SENSEX advanced as much as 0.76% to an intra-day high of 85,319.17, while the NIFTY50 touched the session’s high of 85,319.17 on the last day of 2025.

At 12:42 PM, the S&P BSE SENSEX gained by 511.80 points, or 0.60%, to 85,186.88. NSE’s NIFTY50 stood at 26,116.45, marking a 177.60-point, or 0.68% jump.

On Tuesday, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth ₹3,844.02 crore, while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought equities worth ₹6,159.81 crore on a net basis, according to exchange data.

The NIFTY50 index was bolstered by buying in the shares of JSW Steel (4.89%), Tata Steel (2.62%), Reliance Industries (1.86%), Trent (1.79%) and Titan Company (1.75%).

On the other hand, Bajaj Finance (-0.89%), TCS (-0.89%), Tech Mahindra (-0.52%), Infosys (-0.22%) and Wipro (-0.21%) were among the top laggards.

Buzzing stocks on December 31: Check list

Shares of steel manufacturing companies, including Tata Steel (3.18%), JSW Steel (5.16%), Jindal Steel (4.28%), Lloyds Metals And Energy (3.38%) and others, rose on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), while the NIFTY Metal index jumped 1.45% as of 11:45 am.

This comes after the Indian government imposed a three-year import tariff of between 11% and 12% on certain steel products starting from April 21, 2025, to curb the import of cheap steel from China, Vietnam and Nepal. The move is expected to support domestic steel companies like Tata Steel, JSW Steel and others.

The import tariff, which is also called as safeguard duty, will be applicable on hot rolled coils, sheets and plates, hot rolled plate mill plates, cold rolled coils and sheets and others. Meanwhile, duty will not apply to specialty steel products such as stainless steel.

This new import duty will be 12% when imports are made from April 21, 2025, to April 20, 2026, fall to 11.5% for the April 21, 2026, to April 20, 2027 period and then to 11% for the April 21, 2027, to April 20, 2028 period.

Shares of food delivery platforms Swiggy and Eternal were in focus as both companies rolled out higher incentives for delivery workers during peak hours and year-end days, amid the ongoing nationwide strike by gig and platform workers, as per a Moneycontrol report.

While shares of Swiggy fell by 1.28% to an intra-day low of ₹389, Eternal stock was trading 0.9% higher at the day’s peak of ₹279.60 per unit.

Zomato has offered delivery partners payouts of ₹120–150 per order during peak hours between 6 pm and 12 am, according to the report.

The platform is reportedly promising earnings of up to ₹3,000 over the course of the day, subject to order volumes and availability.

The company has also temporarily waived penalties on order denials and cancellations, the report said.

Swiggy has also stepped up incentives over the year-end period, offering delivery workers earnings of up to ₹10,000 across December 31 and January 1.

Shares of Orient Technologies soared as much as 14.91% to an intraday high of ₹454.20 apiece on Wednesday, December 31, as the company announced the record date for its 1:10 bonus issue.

This follows a day after the IT infrastructure provider firm’s shareholders approved the issuance of bonus shares in the ratio of 1:10, that is, one new fully paid-up equity share of ₹10 each for every 10 existing fully paid-up equity shares of ₹10 each, ranking pari passu in all respects.

RITES stocks advanced as much as 7.37% to the session’s peak of ₹254.75 per equity share, after it received a letter of award (LoA) for the supply of in-service cape gauge diesel electric locomotives from Berhard Development Corporation (Private) Limited, Zimbabwe.

The order is expected to be executed within three months for a broad consideration of $3.6 million, it said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.

Dynacons Systems & Solutions Ltd shares gained as much as 19.33% to an intraday high of ₹1,088.40 per unit, after it bagged an order worth ₹249.15 crore (including GST) from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The IT company secured the order for maintenance and learning services of the enterprise application platform (EAP) software for the apex bank, as stated in a regulatory filing dated December 30.

The project will be executed over a period of five years on a consumption-based model, it added.

Bharat Forge stock climbed as much as 2.5% to hit a 52-week high of ₹1,490.90 apiece, as the company signed its largest small arms contract with the Ministry of Defence worth ₹1,661.9 crore.

The defence ministry has awarded Bharat Forge Limited (BFL) a contract for the supply of 255,128 CQB carbines (5.56 x 45 mm) to the Indian Army. The deal will be executed within five years.

Shares of IFCI rallied as much as 8% to touch an intraday high of ₹54.50 apiece per unit, after the company monetised 40% of its equity stake in North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd (NEDFi).

The stake consisted of 1 crore shares that IFCI had originally bought for ₹10 crore. The state-owned company sold these shares for ₹121.77 crore.

Premier Energies’ stock surged as much as 3.45% to the day’s high of ₹881.50 per unit, after it bagged new orders worth more than ₹2,300 crore in the December quarter of the financial year 2025-26. Additionally, Premier Energies debuted with futures and options contracts today.

In an exchange filing, the company said that it has secured new orders totalling ₹2,307.30 crore during Q3 FY26. The orders will be executed in fiscal years 2027 and 2028.

The contracts were awarded by an array of leading domestic Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and other prominent clients in India, the company said.

The stock of Zydus Wellness, the Ahmedabad-based packaged foods maker, rose as much as 10.48% to hit the session’s peak of ₹468.45 per equity share amid higher-than-usual trading volumes.

Zydus Wellness shares were witnessing higher-than-usual trading activity as trading volume spiked by nearly nine times to 7.19 lakh shares compared with an average trading volume of 81,259 shares on the NSE.