Sensex, Nifty End Higher For Fourth Session In A Row Amid Volatility

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes managed to close higher after witnessing wild swings during the session on Wednesday. The benchmarks staged a gap up opening taking cues from session of equities in the US markets. The sudden profit-booking amid heightened volatility in afternoon deals wiped out entire gains for the benchmarks and led to Sensex falling as much as 825 points from the day's highest level and Nifty 50 index touched a low of 11,775 after crossing high of 12,000 in morning deals. However, the benchmarks managed to bounce from intraday lows in the last 30 minutes of trade owing to buying interest in banking and financial services shares.

The Sensex advanced 163 points or 0.4 per cent to close at 40,707 and Nifty rose 41 points or 0.34 per cent to settle at 11,938.

India VIX - the gauge of expected volatility - in the markets shot up by 3.76 per cent at the day's highest level.

Seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty Realty index's nearly 4.5 per cent surge. Nifty Metal, Private Bank, Bank, PSU Bank and Financial Services indexes also rose between 1.5-2.5 per cent each.

On the other hand, FMCG, information technology and auto shares witnessed selling pressure.

Mid- and small-cap shares ended on a muted note as the Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.33 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index ended little changed.

Power Grid was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 4.5 per cent to close at Rs 164. Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Hindalco, GAIL India, NTPC, Bharat Petroleum, Gasim Industries, UltraTech Cement, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank also rose between 2-3.6 per cent each.

On the flipside, Britannia Industries, TCS, SBI LIfe, Hero MotoCorp, Nestle India, HDFC Life, HCL Technologies, Reliance Industries and Wipro were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was neutral as 1,369 shares ended higher while 1,292 closed lower on the BSE.