SENSEX surges over 700 points, NIFTY50 firm above 24,150 led by Larsen & Toubro

The Indian equity benchmarks staged a gap up opening on Wednesday, July 29, powered by gains in the country's largest infrastructure developer Larsen & Toubro after it surprised the Street by posting better than anticipated June quarter earnings post market hours on Tuesday. The SENSEX rose as much as 794 points and NIFTY50 index touched an intraday high of 24,203.

As of 9:24 am, the SENSEX was up 649 points at 77,415 and NIFTY50 index advanced 195 points to 24,181.

Most of the Asian markets were trading lower as selloff in chipmakers deepened on rising anxiety about AI valuations and rising competition from China ahead of US Federal Reserve policy decision.

South Korea's KOSPI index dropped 7.4%, Japan's Nikkei fell 1.64%, China's Shanghai Composite declined 0.54% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.5%.

Overnight, US stocks ended higher on Tuesday, even as shares of computer chipmakers continued to tumble across the globe. Oil prices, meanwhile, eased further from the two-month high they hit last week.

Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.03%, S&P 500 index advanced 0.21% while tech heavy Nasdaq index dropped 0.22%.

Back home, buying was visible across board as all the major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange (NSE), barring the measure of realty shares, were trading lower led by the NIFTY IT index's over 2% gain, NIFTY FMCG, Metal, Pharma, Media, Healthcare, Auto, Bank, and Financial Services indices also rose between 0.4% and 1.4%.

Broader markets were also witnessing buying interest as NIFTY Midcap 100 and NIFTY Smallcap 100 indices rose 0.5% each.

Larsen & Toubro was among top gainers in the NIFTY50 index, the stock rose as much as 3.55% to hit an intraday high of ₹3,968 after it reported a 13.98% year-on-year (YoY) increase in its consolidated net profit (attributable to the owners of the company) to ₹4,122.85 crore.

In the corresponding period of the previous fiscal year, it had logged a profit of ₹3,617.19 crore, according to a regulatory filing.

Sequentially, however, it fell 22.58% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) from ₹5,325.60 crore in the fourth quarter of the 2025-26 fiscal year (Q1 FY26).

The company recorded a consolidated revenue from operations of ₹67,942 crore during the quarter under review, marking a 6.69% YoY jump from ₹63,679 crore in the first quarter of FY26 (Q1 FY26).

At an operational level, its EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), also known as operating profit, fell 3% YoY to ₹6,116 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2026, as against ₹6,318 crore in the year-ago period.

Infosys, Hindustan Unilever, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Consumer Products, Tech Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, HCL Tech, Wipro, ITC, Tata Motors PV and HDFC Bank also rose between 1.35% and 3.34%.

On the flip side, Bharat Electronics, IndiGo, Coal India, Adani Ports, Axis Bank, Power Grid, Titan, Trent and Dr Reddy's Labs were top losers in the NIFTY50 index.

The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,049 shares were advancing while 752 were declining on the NSE.