Mumbai, Apr 23: Unfazed by the Pahalgam terror attack, Indian stock markets continued their upward journey for the seventh straight trading session on Wednesday, led by strong gains in IT shares.

The Sensex opened on a strong note, jumping 548 points to 80,142 and later touched the day’s high of 80,255.

However, due to selling in banking stocks, the index slipped into negative territory during the day, hitting a low of 79,507. Eventually, it recovered and closed with a gain of 521 points at 80,116.

With this, the Sensex marked a fresh calendar year high and has now risen by 8.5 per cent or 6,269 points over the last seven sessions.

Similarly, the Nifty opened strong at 24,359 but later dropped to 24,120 during the day. The index managed to bounce back and ended 162 points higher at 24,329.

In the last seven days, the Nifty has gained 8.6 per cent or 1,930 points. The sharp rally in IT stocks was the highlight of the session.

HCL Technologies’ shares surged nearly 8 per cent after reporting an 8.1 per cent jump in net profit and a 6.1 per cent increase in revenue for the fourth quarter. This marked the company’s best single-day gain since September 2019.

Other IT majors like Tech Mahindra and Infosys also gained 5 per cent and 4 per cent respectively, while TCS added 2.5 per cent.

Besides IT, stocks like Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra, Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, Maruti, Nestle India, and Larsen and Toubro also ended with solid gains.

On the downside, banking stocks faced selling pressure. Shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI, and Axis Bank declined between 1 to 2 per cent due to profit-taking.

In the broader market, the BSE MidCap index climbed 1 per cent, while the SmallCap index edged up by 0.2 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, the Nifty IT index was the top performer, rising 4.3 per cent. The auto index gained 2.5 per cent, while the pharma and realty sectors advanced 1.4 per cent each.

Market experts say that strong global cues and upbeat corporate earnings are keeping investor sentiment positive.

“The positive undertone was largely inspired by strong corporate earnings and a strong rally on Wall Street, where US indices surged after President Donald Trump delivered comforting remarks about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the ongoing trade negotiations with China,” said Sundar Kewat of Ashika Institutional Equity.

(IANS)

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