Mumbai: Equity benchmark indices erased early losses on Monday and traded with strong gains in the afternoon trade as investors awaited more government measures to perk up the domestic economy.
The market sentiment got a boost following China’s stand that it opposes a trade escalation with the United States, and is ready to enter a dialogue in a bid to reverse the slowdown in global economic growth.
When the closing bell rang, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 793 points or 2.16 percent at 37,494 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 229 points or 2.11 percent to 11,058.
At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), all sectoral indices except for Nifty metal were in the green. Nifty financial services gained by 4 percent, realty by 3.7 percent and private banks by 3.7 percent. But metals slipped by 0.97 percent due to US-China trade tariff issues and their impact on global commodity prices.
The rollback of surcharge proposed in the Budget on foreign portfolio investors and measures to prop-up the economy was largely welcomed by market experts, who now expect another round of announcements shortly — especially for the labor-intensive real estate sector.
Among the prominent gainers were Adani Ports which climbed up by 5.8 percent and HDFC by 5.2 percent. Private lenders like Yes Bank, ICICI Bank, and HDFC Bank were up between 4.4 and 5 percent each.
Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv gained by 5 and 4.2 percent respectively while UltraTech Cement showed a gain of 5 percent. Larsen & Toubro and Zee Entertainment were up by 3.7 percent each.
However, steel companies were down with JSW Steel showing a loss of 3 percent, Vedanta by 2.3 percent, Tata Steel by 2.1 percent and Hindalco by 1 percent. Sun Pharma, Wipro, Reliance Industries and Tata Motors were the other prominent losers.
Meanwhile, Asian shares sank as US President Donald Trump on Friday imposed an additional 5 percent duty on 550 billion dollars of Chinese goods in the latest trade war escalation by the world’s two largest economies.
Markets later pared some losses after Trump said China had contacted Washington overnight to say it wanted to return to the negotiating table. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said Beijing strongly opposes trade protectionism and blockade in the field of new technologies.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan still shed 2 percent while Japan’s Nikkei lost 2.2 percent. Shanghai Composite fell by 1.1 percent as China’s yuan slumped to a fresh 11-year low against the dollar.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled by 1.9 percent due to continuing anti-government protests amid an economic slump.