Nifty extends gains for fourth session to end at record high

Mumbai, March 4 (SocialNews.XYZ) India's benchmark indices extended gains for the fourth session on Monday to end at record high, said Devarsh Vakil, Deputy Head Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

Nifty registered fresh all-time high of 22,440 in the early morning trade and consolidated thereafter for the entire session to finally close with the gains of 27 points at 22,405.60 on Monday.

The Nifty Smallcap 100 Index underperformed the Nifty, and fell by 0.50 per cent as against Nifty's rise of 0.12 per cent, Vakil said.

Declining shares outnumbered the advancing shares as the advance decline ratio stood at 0.56 levels on the BSE, lowest in last three sessions.

Among the sectoral indices, Nifty Oil/Gas, Banks and Pharma gained the most, while Nifty Media, IT and FMCG fell the most. NTPC, HDFC Life and Power Grid were the top gainers of the day, while JSW Steel, Eicher Motors and M&M were the worst hit, he said.

Wind energy stocks tumbled on Monday on fears that tariffs would fall. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is planning to bring back the old method of ‘reverse auctions’ for selling wind power capacity to energy companies given the under subscription and higher tariff discovered in recent wind bids, Vakil added.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said the market traded in a range-bound manner due to weak global cues, while investors turned stock-specific due to the prevailing caution on broader indices.

Further, the tepid consumption data influenced the investors to refrain from FMCG and discretionary stocks.

The global sentiment is likely to be cautious ahead of US Fed Chair's testimony and ECB policy later this week.

Since inflation is above the target range, the Fed is expected to keep its hawkish stance on interest rates and be watchful of unemployment and nonfarm payroll data for more cues.

Source: IANS