SENSEX, NIFTY50 gain for a second straight session led by ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro

The Indian equity benchmarks rose for a second straight session on Tuesday, March 17. The SENSEX rose as much as 801 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 23,657 led by gains in ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Larsen & Toubro, Eternal, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel and HDFC Bank.

The benchmarks traded in a rangebound session for most part of the day but surged to the day's highest level in the last hour of trade on account of a short covering rally as weekly futures and options contracts for NIFTY50 expired, analysts noted.

The SENSEX ended 568 points higher at 76,070.84 and NIFTY50 index advanced 172 points to close at 23,581.15.

The cascading disruptions threaten to completely sever the OPEC producer's remaining crude export outlet from global markets, potentially deepening a crisis that has sent energy prices surging.

Back home, buying was visible across board as 13 of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended higher led by the NIFTY Metal index's nearly 3% gain. NIFTY Auto, Private Bank, Realty, Bank, Financial Services and Consumer Durables indices also rose between 0.85% and 2.11%.

On the flip side, FMCG and IT indices declined 0.75% and 0.9% respectively.

Broader markets also witnessed buying interest as NIFTY Midcap 100 index advanced 1% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index gained 0.65%.

Among the individual shares, MOIL ended 20% higher at ₹297.65 after the company in an investor presentation said that production and sale of manganese ore rose to highest level in five years.

MOIL in an investor presentation said that its manganese ore production jumped to 18.03 lakh metric tonnes in 2024-25 and sales rose to 15.88 lakh metric tonnes, the highest level in five years.

MOIL added that its total income in 2024-25 also jumped to highest level in five years to ₹1,696 crore from ₹1,543 crore in the previous year.

Shares of sugar manufacturers such as Rajshree Sugars, Gayatri Sugars, Shree Renuka Sugar, Bajaj Hindusthan, EID Parry, Mawana Sugar and Rana Sugars rose between 2% and 7% after government approved additional export quota of 87,587 tonnes of sugar for the 2025-26 marketing year (October-September), following requests from sugar mills, the ministry said in a circular on Monday.

Eternal was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock rose 5.59% to close at ₹234 after the government restarted sale of commercial LPG cylinders.

Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Life, Bharat Electronics, Maruti Suzuki, Larsen & Toubro, Bharti Airtel and ONGC also rose between 1.8% and 4.4%.

On the other hand, Wipro, Cipla, Tata Consumer Products, Infosys, ITC, Bajaj Finance, Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies were top losers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,934 shares ended higher while 1,299 closed lower on the NSE.