Sensex Surges 488 Points; Titan, Tata Motors Surge Over 10%

The Indian equity benchmarks moved higher on Thursday led by gains in auto, information technology and consumer durable heavyweights Infosys, TCS, Tata Motors and Titan Company. The Sensex rose as much as 725 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 17,857.55. The markets staged a gap up opening and traded firmly higher ahead of start of the corporate results on Friday and the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy decision.

The Sensex ended 488 points higher at 59,678 and Nifty 50 index advanced 144 points to close at 17,790.

The monetary policy committee is widely expected to keep the repo rate unchanged to support recovering growth on Friday, but some analysts have cited a slim chance of the Reserve Bank of India delivering a token increase in the reverse repo rate.

Meanwhile, second quarter corporate earnings from Nifty 50 companies will begin tomorrow with country's largest IT company TCS reporting its September quarter earnings.

Tata Motors surged to their highest levels in nearly four years on Thursday after Morgan Stanley Research upgraded the stock on expectations of encouraging annual earnings from the Jaguar Land Rover parent.

The brokerage increased its rating on Tata Motors to "overweight" from "equal-weight", which it had maintained since 2017, saying it expected the automaker's India business to post a full-year profit after eight years of losses.

Titan rallied over 10 per cent to hit record high of Rs 2,384.25 after the company informed exchanges that it witnessed strong recovery in demand after the second wave across its consumer businesses with sales moving swiftly above or close to pre-pandemic levels in most of the divisions.

TCS rose 2.1 per cent to close at Rs 3,891 a day ahead of earnings.

Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Eicher Motors, IndusInd Bank, Sun Pharma, HCL Technologies, Asian Paints and ICICI Bank also rose between 2-5 per cent.

On the flipside, ONGC, Dr Reddy's Labs, Coal India, HDFC, Bajaj Finserv, Divi's Labs, Hindustan Unilever, Britannia Industries and Grasim Industries were among the top losers in the Nifty.

All the 15 sector gauges, barring the index of oil & gas shares, compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty Realty index's 6 per cent gain. Nifty Consumer Durables and Auto indexes also rose 5.4 per cent and 4.4 per cent each respectively.

Mid- and small-cap shares also witnessed buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose nearly 2 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 1.25 per cent.

The overall market breadth was positive as 2,222 shares ended higher while 1,077 closed lower on the BSE.