SENSEX rises over 250 points, NIFTY50 reclaims 23,400 led by Bajaj Finance, L&T

The Indian equity benchmarks staged a gap opening on Wednesday, September 23. The SENSEX rose as much as 284 points and NIFTY50 index reclaimed its psychologically important level of 23,400 and touched an intraday high of 23,415 as sustained decline in crude prices supported the up move in equity markets.

As of 9:25 am, the SENSEX was up 193 points at 74,722 and NIFTY50 index rose 54 points to 23,382 led by gains in index heavyweights like Bajaj Finance, Larsen & Toubro, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel, ITC and Titan.

Crude oil dropped for a second straight session and traded below $100 per barrel mark on expectations of diplomatic solution to the US-Iran ‌war through talks at the UN in New York.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia began restoring crude supply on a critical pipeline to the Red Sea.

Brent Crude futures fell nearly 1% to $98.27 per barrel.

Asian shares were trading on a mixed note, but tech stocks were witnessing buying interest over optimism around Meta Platforms Inc.’s new artificial intelligence agent.

South Korea's KOSPI index advanced 0.33%, China's Shanghai Composite declined 0.15%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.08% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.9%.

Japan's Nikkei was closed on account of holiday.

Back home, 12 of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) were trading higher led by the NIFTY Metal index's 1.3% gain. FMCG, PSU Bank, Realty, Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas, Bank and Financial Services indices also rose between 0.3% and 0.8%.

On the other hand, IT, media and select pharma shares were facing selling pressure.

Broader markets were outperforming their peers as NIFTY Midcap 100 index advanced 0.33% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index gained 0.64%.

Oil sensitive stocks such as IndiGo, Pidilite Industries, Asian Paints, Reliance Industries and Indian Oil among others were witnessing buying interest tracking a fall in crude prices.

Optiemus Infracom surged for a second straight session and surged as much as 20% to hit a record high of ₹850.05 after the government brought smartphone screen protectors under Bureau of Indian Standards.

Bajaj Finance was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock rose 2.25% to ₹1,031. Bajaj Finserv, JSW Steel, Hindalco, Tata Steel, Larsen & Toubro, Shriram Finance, Ultratech Cement and Apollo Hospitals also rose between 0.93% and 1.7%.

On the flip side, Coal India, Wipro, SBI Life, TCS, HDFC Life, Infosys, ONGC, Bajaj Auto and Trent were top losers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,346 shares were advancing while 653 were declining on the NSE.