Sensex back above 40,000 points

Our Correspondent

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) continued its strong rally on Friday on the first trading day this week. The stock market, which started with gains, has not lost ground at any stage on the day. Eventually the trade ended at the same level as it had started.

The Sensex is up 448 points. The Nifty gained 110 points.

The Sensex closed at 40,431 points. It had gone up to 40,519.48 points. Similarly, the Nifty, which had up to 11,898.25 points closed at 11,873 points.

Bank stocks were the main gainers on the day. The Nifty Bank Index was up 2.96 per cent. HDFC Bank’s strong second quarter results lead to a rise in banking stocks. Shares of Bank of Baroda, Federal Bank and ICICI Bank gained between 5% and 8%.

The upward trend was also seen in metal indices. The Nifty Metal Index was up 1.78 per cent. At the same time, auto, pharma and IT stocks came under selling pressure. The Nifty Pharma index lost 1.67 per cent.

The majority of Nifty stocks traded higher on the day. Out of the 50 stocks in the Nifty, 35 gained while 15 lost. ICICI Bank, Nestle India, Axis Bank, GAIL and SBI are the top five gainers in the Nifty on the day. ICICI Bank gained 5.12 per cent. Shares of Nestle India, Axis Bank, GAIL and SBI gained over 4 per cent.

Divis Lab, Acer Motors, Hero Motors, Cipla and Bajaj Auto were the top five losers in the Nifty. These stocks lost over 2 per cent.