Small-caps sulk, but Sensex takes a leap beyond 74,000
MUMBAI : Bulls turned the tables on bears in the last hour and a half of trading on positive cues from the global markets, lifting benchmark indices to new closing highs on Wednesday. US futures indicated the Dow Jones may open in the green ahead of the Fed chair's appearance at the Congress, aiding markets in India. Interest rate cuts were likely “at some point this year", chairman Jerome Powell said in a prepared testimony released later, but made it clear the Fed is not ready yet.
Domestic and foreign institutional buying catapulted the Sensex past the 74,000-mark to a new high of 74,151.27, off the day's low by a whopping 830 points, while the Nifty tested a life-high of 22,497.20, less than three points shy of 22,500. However, the recovery was uneven, with bearish sentiment ruling mid-cap and small-cap indices, which ended in the red following regulatory action against well-known shadow banks this week. The Nifty and Sensex ended the session up a little over half a percent at 22,474.05 and 74,085.99, as foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) net purchased large caps worth a provisional ₹2,766.75 crore and DIIs bought a net ₹2,149.88 crore.
Shares such as ICICI Bank ( ₹1,113.35), SBI ( ₹790.15), NTPC ( ₹360.35) and Sun Pharma ( ₹1,607) hit fresh life highs. However, the central bank's curbs on gold lending by IIFL Finance and on IPO financing by JM Financial's NBFC triggered a 1.97% correction in Nifty Smallcap 250 to 14,684.2 and a 0.64% fall in the Nifty Midcap 150 to 17,950. Clients on the BSE net sold ₹198.51 crore worth of shares, mostly in the small-cap space.
The Nifty Smallcap 250 tanked 1.97% to 14,684.2 and the Nifty Midcap 150 corrected 0.64% to 17,950. The Nifty Microcap 250 fell 2.53% to 19,676. While
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