Mumbai, India (BBN) – The Sensex and Nifty were trading higher by nearly 0.4 per cent due to short-covering by investors ahead of the December month F&O expiry later today.
At 2:05pm, the 30-share BSE index Sensex was up 78.68 points or 0.3 per cent at 26,289.36 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 34.8 points or 0.43 per cent at 8,069.65, reports The Hindu Business Line.
Among BSE sectoral indices, consumer durables gained the most by 1.17 per cent, followed by oil & gas 0.91 per cent, IT 0.82 per cent and TECk 0.75 per cent, while only capital goods index was down 0.3 per cent.
Top five Sensex gainers were TCS (+1.31%), HDFC (+1.16%), Wipro (+1.1%), HUL (+1.03%) and NTPC (+0.9%), while the only losers were Adani Ports (-1.27%), L&T (-0.86%), ITC (-0.76%), Sun Pharma (-0.63%) and SBI (-0.47%).
Asian shares struggled after a lacklustre performance on Wall Street as investors looked to US economic data later in the day for potential catalysts.
Some volatility is also expected ahead of the expiry of monthly futures and options (F&O) contracts at the end of the session.
“F&O expiry is likely to impact markets today… Volumes are pretty low across the world and generally that’s the trend at this time of the year,” said Dipen Shah, senior vice president, public client group research, Kotak Securities.
Investors remained attracted to recently hit shares, with both indexes headed for their first weekly gain in three.
Worries about capital outflows from emerging markets to the United States and India’s move to ban higher-value currency notes have hit sentiment since November.
Foreign investors offloaded net $100.58 million of shares on December 27, having sold $975.80 million worth of local shares this month.
Asian shares slipped on Thursday after Wall Street suffered a mild setback after weeks of gains, while the dollar faded against the yen in typical year-end profit taking.
Japan’s Nikkei lost 1 per cent as the yen firmed, edging away from its recent one-year top. Australia’s main index eased 0.1 per cent, having touched a 17-month peak the previous day.
US stocks fell in low volume on Wednesday in a broad decline triggered in part by a sharp drop in home resales.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 111.36 points, or 0.56 per cent, to 19,833.68, the S&P 500 lost 18.96 points, or 0.84 per cent, to 2,249.92 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 48.89 points, or 0.89 percent, to 5,438.56.
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