Market closing: Reliance, Bharti Airtel shine as Tata Steel, Hindalco end the day in red

Both Nifty and Sensex ended the day in green, with Sensex trading at 78,674.25 points, up by 0.8%, and Nifty50 closing at 23,868.8 points, up by 0.62%. Reliance (up by 3.88%), Bharti Airtel (up by 3.33%), UltraTech Cement (up by 2.84%),Grasim (up by 1.51%) and Britannia (up by 1.49%) were amongst the day's biggest gainers. On the other hand, Apollo hospitals (down by 2.52%), Mahindra and Mahindra (down by 1.81%), Bajaj Auto (down by 1.76%), Tata steel (down by 1.64%) and Hindalco (down by 1.56%) lost significant ground during the day's trade.

According to Mr. Aditya Gaggar, director of Progressive Shares, "heavyweight Reliance and the banking counters-led rally helped the Index to extend its journey towards the north to end the session at a record level of 23,868.80 with gains of 147.50 points. On a sectoral front, media was the top performer followed by energy while metal and realty persisted with their underperformance. Mid and smallcaps underperformed as the buying interest remained towards index stocks only. We believe that a profit-booking correction can be seen because the ongoing rally is on a weak foot and is mainly driven by select heavyweights".

Out of the 2,744 stocks traded during the day, 1,258 saw advances while 1,395 declined. 184 stocks hit their 52-week high price, while 12 stocks dipped to their 52-week low. 103 stocks hit their upper circuit, or maximum permissible price during a trading session, while 58 stocks hit the lower circuit, or minimum permissible price during a single trading session.

As for sectoral indices, media (up by 1.6%) and oil and gas (up by 1.39%) emerged as significant gainers, while auto (down by 0.92%), IT (down by 0.06%), metal (down by 1.45%) and realty (down by 1.43%) closed the day in red.

As Shrikant Chouhan, Head Equity Research, Kotak Securities noted, "The Nifty rallied 147 points while the Sensex was up by 620 points. Among sectors, media, energy, oil & gas indices outperformed by rallying over 1% whereas despite strong momentum profit booking which was seen in metal stocks, the metal index shed 1.4%.

"We are of the view that, the short-term technical set up is positive but due to temporary overbought conditions, we could see some profit booking at higher levels. For the breakout traders now, 23,750/78,250 would be the key support zone. Above which the market could move up till 24,000-24,050/79,000-79,200. On the flip side, below 23,750/78,250 uptrend would be vulnerable", continued Chouhan.

During the day, stocks of Vedanta swung to action as its holding company confirmed a block deal to sell 2.6% of its share worth Rs 7,968 crores to reduce debt. The stock ended the day trading on Rs 442, down by 2.65%.

Stocks of Zee Media Corporation also rallied to close 1.61% higher at Rs 14.54, after its board approved to raise funds worth Rs 200 crore.