Sensex, Nifty Rise on Banking, Metal Gains - PTI

Mumbai, Oct 18 (PTI) Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty bounced back on Friday after three days of fall, led by value buying in banking, financials and metal stocks and firm global market trends.

Recovering from its early lows, the BSE Sensex climbed 218.14 points or 0.27 per cent to settle at 81,224.75. During the day, it jumped 384.54 points or 0.47 per cent to 81,391.15.

The NSE Nifty ended 104.20 points or 0.42 per cent higher at 24,854.05.

Also, buying by domestic institutional investors supported market recovery.

From the 30 Sensex firms, Axis Bank jumped nearly 6 per cent after the company's consolidated net profit for the September quarter rose by 19.29 per cent to Rs 7,401.26 crore.

ICICI Bank, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, NTPC, JSW Steel, State Bank of India and Adani Ports were the other big gainers.

Among the blue-chip pack, Infosys tanked over 4 per cent after its second quarter earnings failed to cheer investors.

India's second-largest IT services exporter on Thursday reported a near 5 per cent rise in its second quarter net profit and raised revenue guidance for the year on broad-based recovery in demand particularly from its key financial industry clients.

Asian Paints, Nestle, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, Hindustan Unilever and ITC were the other big laggards.

"After the morning sell-off, the market bounced from the oversold level driven by selective buying in financials, auto and metals stocks. Initial set of results from private banks were positive, building an expectation that the upcoming set of financial results in the weekends will also be optimistic," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.

The BSE midcap gauge climbed 0.21 per cent while smallcap gauge dipped 0.16 per cent.

Among the indices, bankex jumped 1.84 per cent, metal climbed 1.65 per cent, financial services (1.12 per cent), commodities (1.02 per cent), utilities (0.91 per cent) and auto (0.58 per cent).

IT fell by 1.73 per cent, teck (1.37 per cent), oil & gas (0.13 per cent) and consumer discretionary (0.10 per cent).

On the weekly front, the BSE benchmark declined 156.61 points or 0.19 per cent and the Nifty went lower by 110.2 points or 0.44 per cent.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 7,421.40 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data. DIIs, however, bought equities worth Rs 4,979.83 crore.

"Markets reversed the 3-day fall as investors resorted to value buying in banking, metals and realty stocks which had seen sharp downfall in recent sessions. Geo-political uncertainty coupled with sluggishness in the Chinese economy and persistent FII outflows from the domestic markets have led to caution," Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities Ltd, said.

In Asian markets, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong settled sharply higher while Seoul ended lower.

European markets were trading in positive territory. The US markets ended mostly higher on Thursday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude dipped 0.07 per cent to USD 74.40 a barrel.