New Delhi, 29 July (H.S.): The domestic stock market witnessed a strong rally on Wednesday, maintaining a positive sentiment throughout the trading session. During intraday trade, the Sensex surged nearly 1,000 points, while the Nifty also gained around 300 points. The sharp rise in the market helped investors earn a massive profit of Rs 4.27 lakh crore in a single day.

The market opened on a strong note, although selling pressure emerged briefly after the opening session. However, buyers soon took control, and bulls dominated trading throughout the day. Despite several attempts by bears to create selling pressure, their efforts failed due to strong buying momentum. At the end of the trading session, the Sensex closed with a gain of 1.16 per cent, while the Nifty ended 1.10 per cent higher.

The BSE Sensex opened at 77,423.77 points, gaining 675.85 points or 0.86 per cent. Shortly after the opening, selling pressure dragged the index down to 77,333.24 points. However, strong buying interest returned, pushing the Sensex higher once again.

Supported by continuous buying, the Sensex climbed 999.57 points or 1.30 per cent to touch an intraday high of 77,765.49 points shortly before 3 pm. Later, minor profit booking led to some selling pressure, causing the index to slip more than 110 points from the day’s high. The Sensex finally closed at 77,654.60 points, registering a gain of 888.68 points.

Like the Sensex, the NSE Nifty also opened higher, gaining 191.30 points or 0.80 per cent to begin trading at 24,176.65 points. After initial selling pressure pushed the index down to 24,136.75 points, buyers took charge and accelerated the upward movement. Although occasional selling pressure was witnessed during the day, strong buying prevented any significant impact on the index.

With sustained buying support, the Nifty reached an intraday high of 24,283.55 points, gaining 298.20 points or 1.24 per cent, around 3 pm. During the final half-hour of trade, profit booking by investors led to a slight decline. The index closed at 24,250.20 points, gaining 264.85 points after slipping around 34 points from its day’s high.

During the day’s trading, heavy buying was witnessed in shares belonging to the IT, metal and FMCG sectors. The Nifty IT index closed 2.32 per cent higher, while the metal index jumped 2.26 per cent and the FMCG index gained 1.50 per cent. Apart from these, indices representing capital goods, banking, media, telecom, consumer durables and healthcare sectors also ended in positive territory.

On the other hand, stocks from the realty, public sector enterprises, oil and gas, and automobile sectors remained under pressure during the session. The broader market also witnessed continuous buying activity, with the Nifty Midcap index closing 0.82 per cent higher. The Nifty Smallcap index ended the session with a gain of 1.48 per cent.

The strong rally in the stock market increased investors’ wealth by more than Rs 4.25 lakh crore. The market capitalisation of companies listed on the BSE rose to Rs 483.35 lakh crore (provisional) after Wednesday’s trade, compared to Rs 479.08 lakh crore on the previous trading day, Tuesday. This resulted in investors gaining around Rs 4.27 lakh crore during the session.

During the day, 4,424 shares were actively traded on the BSE. Of these, 2,593 shares closed with gains, 1,652 shares declined, and 179 shares remained unchanged. On the NSE, 2,970 shares witnessed active trading, with 1,879 shares ending in the green and 1,091 shares closing in the red.

Among the 30 Sensex constituents, 25 shares closed higher while five ended lower. In the Nifty 50 index, 38 shares closed with gains and 12 finished with losses.

Among the major stocks, Jio Financial Services gained 5.23 per cent, Hindustan Unilever rose 4.70 per cent, Infosys climbed 4.51 per cent, Hindalco Industries advanced 2.78 per cent, and Larsen & Toubro increased 2.59 per cent, emerging as the top five gainers of the day.

On the other hand, Adani Ports declined 3.10 per cent, Mahindra & Mahindra fell 1.51 per cent, Power Grid Corporation dropped 0.86 per cent, Eicher Motors slipped 0.73 per cent, and Bharat Electronics declined 0.37 per cent, making them the top five losers of the session.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar