SENSEX, NIFTY50 snap three-day losing streak led by Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro

The Indian equity benchmarks snapped their three-day losing streak and staged a strong rebound on Thursday, March 5, amid strong global cues after a report suggested that Iran made a conditional offer to abandon its nucleal programme.

The SENSEX rose as much as 1,188 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 24,854 led by gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharat Electronics, NTPC and Bajaj Finance.

The SENSEX ended 900 points higher at 80,016 and NIFTY50 index advanced 285 points to close at 24,766.

Asian markets ended higher following an overnight rebound in the US markets. South Korea's KOSPI advanced 9.6%, Japan's Nikkei advanced 1.72% and China's Shanghai Composite index gained 0.64%.

Chinese shares climbed as party elites in Beijing unveiled their wide-ranging economic and development targets, according to a Reuters report.

Back home, all the major sector gauges, barring the measure of IT shares, ended higher led by the NIFTY Metal index's 2.3% gain. NIFTY Bank, Financial Services, Auto, Pharma, Realty, Healthcare, Oil & Gas and Consumer Durables indices also fell between -0.5% and 2.1%.

Broader markets outperformed their larger peers as NIFTY Midcap 100 and NIFTY Smallcap 100 indices advanced over 1.5%.

Among the individual shares, shares of aluminium producers like NALCO, Hindalco and Vedanta jumped up to 6.55% after reports suggested that Qatalum, a major aluminium smelter jointly owned by Hydro and Qatar Aluminium Manufacturing Co., has started a controlled shutdown of its aluminium production after its gas supplier signalled a forthcoming halt in gas supply.

Analysts say that controlled shutdown of the smelter at Qatalum could be positive for Indian aluminium producers as buyers would look for alternative options to source aluminium.

Adani Ports was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock advanced 3.82% to close at ₹1,489.

Hindalco, Larsen & Toubro, Bharat Electronics, NTPC, Reliance Industries, Coal India, Shriram Finance and JSW Steel also rose between 2.9% and 3.8%.

On the flip side, Tech Mahindra, ICICI Bank, HCL Technologies, State Bank of India, TCS, Hindustan Unilever and Infosys were top losers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was positive as 2,210 shares ended higher while 1,039 closed lower on the NSE.