SENSEX, NIFTY50 edge higher led by gains State Bank of India, Mahindra & Mahindra

The Indian equity benchmarks edged higher on Wednesday, August 5, powered by gains in State Bank of India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Infosys and Ultratech Cement.

The SENSEX traded in a band of 770 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 24,677 and low of 24,497.

The SENSEX ended 152 points higher at 78,581 and NIFTY50 index advanced 10 points to close at 24,625.

Governor Malhotra noted that headline inflation is set to rise in the near term, fuelled by higher oil and food prices, and will peak in the third quarter before starting to decline.

Governor Malhotra said that the rise in inflation is exacerbated by food and fuel prices, but it is not broad-based.

Amid persistent global uncertainty, the domestic economy has exhibited resilience, and the Indian economy has performed better than expected in the April-June quarter of this financial year, the Governor highlighted.

But he noted that renewed tensions in West Asia, volatility in global markets and El-Nino are downside risks to growth.

10 of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the NIFTY Media index's 1.5% fall. FMCG, Financial Services, IT, Pharma, Private Bank, Healthcare, Consumer Durables and Oil & Gas indices also fell between 0.1% and 0.3%.

On the other hand, auto, metal, PSU banking and realty shares witnessed buying interest.

Broader markets ended higher as NIFTY Midcap 100 index rose 0.18% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index surged 0.76%.

Trading volume in the stock jumped by 65.9 times to 94.54 lakh shares on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) compared with an average volume of 1.43 lakh shares.

General insurance shares like Go Digit General Insurance, New India Assurance and ICICI Lombard surged over 2% after Supreme Court extended the mandatory third-party insurance coverage of new vehicles by a year.

Deepak Nitrite shares surged as much as 7.84% to hit an intraday high of ₹1,850 after its net profit in June quarter more than doubled to ₹65 crore from ₹30 crore in the same period last year.

Its revenue from operations advanced 32% to ₹807 crore at the end of first quarter from ₹612 crore a year earlier.

Shriram Finance was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock rose 3.23% to close at ₹1,122.

Grasim, JSW Steel, Hindalco, NTPC, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Life, Larsen & Toubro, State Bank of India and Ultratech Cement also rose between 1.2% and 2.74%.

On the flip side, TCS, Apollo Hospitals, HCL Technologies, Sun Pharma, Jio Financial Services, SBI Life, HDFC Bank and Bajaj Finserv top losers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,794 shares ended higher while 1,394 closed lower on the NSE.