SENSEX rises 356 points, NIFTY50 closes above 24,100 amid easing Middle East tensions, key state election results

The Indian equity benchmarks surged on Monday, May 4, as investor sentiment turned positive after Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won West Bengal assembly elections for the first time and returned to power in Assam.

The sentiment also got a boost after crude oil prices dropped sharply in international markets after President Donald Trump said the US would start helping free ships stranded in the Gulf by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

West Bengal victory boosts sentiment

The SENSEX rose as much as 997 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 24,290 led by gains in Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Adani Ports, Hindustan Unilever and ICICI Bank. The benchmarks, however, came off intraday highs on account of profit booking at higher levels.

The SENSEX ended 356 points higher at 77,269 and NIFTY50 index advanced 122 points to close at 24,119.

BJP was leading on 193 out of 293 seats in West Bengal and in Assam BJP was leading on 99 out of 126 seats. In Tamil Nadu actor Vijay led TVK was leading on 105 seats and in Kerala United Democratic Front (UDF) backed by Congress was leading on 90 out of 140 seats.

Analysts noted that with BJP coming to power in West Bengal, its number of seats in the Rajya Sabha will increase and lead to better policy stability going ahead.

Sectoral landscape

11 of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended higher led by the NIFTY Realty index's 2.4% gain. NIFTY Healthcare, Metal, Pharma, FMCG, Auto and Financial Services indices also rose between 0.4% and 1%.

Broader markets also witnessed buying interest as NIFTY Midcap 100 index rose 0.63% and NIFTY Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.7%.

Among the individual shares, Dr Lal Path Labs surged 20% to ₹1,640 on the back of high trading volume.

Trading volumes surged past 7.9 million shares across both stock exchanges, according to data collected from Trendlyne.

HFCL shares rallied 11% to hit a 52-week high of ₹128.49 after the company, along with HTL Limited, a material subsidiary of the firm, has secured purchase orders worth ₹84.23 crore for the supply of optical fibre cables from one of the private telecom operators.

NIFTY50 gainers and losers

Adani Ports was top gainer in the NIFTY50 index, the stock rose 5.4% to close at ₹1,747. Eicher Motors, Jio Financial Services, Adani Enterprises, Reliance Industries, Shriram Finance, Hindustan Unilever and Larsen & Toubro also rose between 2.14% and 3.11%.

On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank was top loser, the stock fell 3.18% to close at ₹371 after its Q4 earnings failed to enthuse investors. Kotak Bank's net profit in March quarter rose 13% to ₹4,027 crore in January-March quarter.

Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddy's Labs, ONGC, TCS, IndiGo, Infosys and ITC were also among the top laggards in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was positive as 2,140 shares ended higher while 1,187 closed lower on the NSE.