Short covering in banking, fin stocks halts 3-session decline

Mumbai: Equity benchmark index Sensex ended a three-session losing streak to close nearly 450 points higher on Tuesday, helped by intense buying in index majors HDFC twins, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank amid a mixed trend in the global markets. Besides, a firm trend in financial, realty, teck and IT counters also supported the domestic equities, traders said.

The 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 446.03 points or 0.71 per cent to settle at 63,416.03 points. During the day, it advanced 497.54 points or 0.79 per cent to 63,467.54 points. NSE Nifty climbed 126.20 points or 0.68 per cent to end at 18,817.40 points.

“Short covering ahead of Wednesday’s F&O expiry may have triggered a sharp rebound in key benchmark indices despite a lacklustre trend in Asian and European indices. Investors have once again bet big on India’s sound economic fundamentals by latching to banking and realty shares and shrugged off negative catalysts like hawkish Fed, mounting Chinese growth concerns, Russian crisis and erratic monsoon so far,” said Shrikant Chouhan, head (research-retail), Kotak Securities Ltd.

“The domestic market rallied, primarily supported by banking and finance stocks, which received a boost from the merger updates from HDFC.