Stock Market LIVE Updates: US markets gain but Asian peers in red, GIFT Nifty hints flat start in India

Diverging from their weak counterparts, Indian equities started the session on a strong note and compounded their gains under the leadership of select heavyweights; however, towards the end of the day, the Index pared off some of its gains to settle the day at 22,123.65 with gains of 118.95 points. Realty and Energy were the top performers on a sector-wise performance while PSU Banks and IT were the laggards.

A mixed trend was seen in the broader markets where Midcaps underperformed while Smallcap gained over 0.90% and outshined Nifty50. As indicated yesterday, the Index has formed an Inverted Head & Shoulder formation and now awaiting a breakout for the target of 22,640 while on the lower side, 21,900 will continue to act as a strong support.

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: Trends on GIFT Nifty indicate a flat start for the broader index in India, with a loss of 5 points. The Nifty futures were trading around 22,176 level.

US stocks were higher on Wednesday, with the Dow leading gains and the S&P 500 setting a closing record, paced drugmaker Merck, while investors looked towards the next piece of inflation data and Federal Reserve commentary for signals on the rate path.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 477.75 points, or 1.22% , to 39,760.08, the S&P 500 gained 44.91 points, or 0.86%, to 5,248.49 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 83.82 points, or 0.51%, to 16,399.52.

The market erased previous session’s losses helped by buying in heavyweights and auto, realty, power and capital goods stocks on March 27.

At close, the Sensex was up 526.01 points, or 0.73 percent, at 72,996.31, and the Nifty was up 119 points, or 0.54 percent, at 22,123.70.

Amid mixed global cues, the market opened on a positive note and extended gains as the day progress led by narrowed Current Account Deficit (CAD) at $10.5 billion in the third quarter and buying in heavyweights.

Biggest gainers on the Nifty were Reliance Industries, Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto, Bajaj Finance and Titan Company, while losers included Hero MotoCorp, Tata Consumer Products, Apollo Hospitals, Dr Reddy’s Labs and Wipro.

Among sectors, auto, bank, capital goods, power, realty, telecom were up 0.5-1 percent, while metal, IT, media down 0.3-0.5 percent.

The BSE midcap index ended on a flat note and the smallcap index gained 0.7 percent.