Market Wrap Podcast, Oct 13: Here's all that happened in the markets today

The domestic benchmark indices surged for the fifth session on Wednesday led by auto, IT, metal and infrastructure stocks to end at record closing levels. The BSE Sensex rose 453 points to end at 60,737 after touching a new high of 60,836. The Nifty50, meanwhile, was up 170 points at 18,161. The 50-pack index had hit a record high of 18,197.

Tata Motors, M&M, Tata Consumer Products, Power Grid Corp and ITC were among the major gainers on the Nifty. Maruti Suzuki, ONGC, Coal India, SBI Life Insurance and HUL were among the big losers. About 1602 shares have advanced, 1504 shares declined, and 118 shares are unchanged on the BSE.

On the sectoral front, the auto index added 3.5 percent, while energy, infrastructure, metal, IT, power and capital goods indices were up 1 percent each. The Nifty Bank index,too, hit a fresh record high of 38,779 earlier today. It closed at 38,636, up 0.3 per cent. The only sectoral loser was Nifty Realty, which fell by 0.24 per cent.

Infrastructure and metal stocks, such as SAIL, Hindustan Zinc, Nalco, and Jindal Steel rose between 3.8 and 5 per cent today, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Rs 113-trillion infrastructure development and multi-modal connectivity programme 'Gati Shakti'.

In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index outperformed the benchmarks. The index closed with gains of 1.62 per cent at 26,572 levels after hitting a fresh lifetime high of 26,590 in the intra-day trade. The BSE Smallcap index added 0.6 percent.

Aviation stocks rose today after the Civil Aviation Ministry decided to restore the scheduled domestic air operations from October 18 without any capacity restriction. The stock of SpiceJet ended 3.4 per cent higher, while that of IndiGo surged 5.9 per cent, before ending 1 per cent lower on profit-booking.

Coming to stock-specific moves, shares of Tata Motors surged over 21 per cent as an investment worth $1 billion, by TPG Rise Climate and Abu Dhabi's ADQ in the company is set to unlock value for the Tata Group company’s electric vehicle (EV) business.

Shares of Avenue Supermarts, owner of D-Mart retail chain, crossed the Rs 5,000 mark for the first time as they rallied 18 per cent. The stock ended 7.8 per cent higher. Meanwhile, shares of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries hit an over five year high of Rs 846.80, up 2 per cent on expectation of strong revenue growth, to close up 1.3 per cent.

That said, the stock of Wipro rose 2 per cent today, while that of Infosys was up 1.2 per cent. Both the companies announced robust earnings growth for Q2FY22. While Wipro reported a 19 percent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 2,930 crore for the second quarter ended September, Infosys reported a 12 per cent year-on-year rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 5,421 crore.

Going into trade on Thursday, the markets will continue to focus on corporate earnings for the quarter ended September. Various companies including HCL Technologies, Cyient, Mahindra CIE Automotive, Indiabulls Real Estate, GTPL Hathway and Den Networks will detail their Q2 numbers on October 13.

Lastly, global markets, stock-specific moves as well as news related to Covid-19 will be among other major triggers for investors.