Sensex rises 400 pts, Nifty above 25,150; Auto stocks lead gains today

Stock market today: Benchmark equity indices were trading in the green on Wednesday, July 23, as earnings season kept the D-Street sentiment cautiously optimistic. While India Inc.'s results for the first quarter of the financial year 2025-2026 (Q1FY26) remained the primary focus point of investors, lack of concrete developments on trade tariff deals between the US and India limited any prospective upside.

At 12:30 PM, Sensex was trading at 82,570.47 level, up by 384 points or 0.47 per cent. The index hit an intra-day high of 82,593.63, up by 406 points. Whereas, NSE Nifty was trading above 25,100 level, up by 110 points or 0.44 per cent. The index hit an intraday high of 25,176.65.

 

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Majority stocks from the Sensex pack were trading in green with Tata Motors, Bajaj Finance, Maruti Suzuki, Bharti Airtel and NTPC among the top gainers. On the other hand, Bharat Electronics (BEL), Hindustan Unilever, UltraTech Cement, Trent and Asian Paints were among the top laggards.

Interestingly, broader markets struggled to trade in the green territory. The Nifty midcap 100 was trading at 58,927 level, down by 0.30 per cent. Whereas, Nifty smallcap was down by 0.53 per cent, quoting 18,793.

Sectorally, Nifty Auto was among the top-performing indices, up by 0.65 per cent, trading at 24,030. Meanwhile, Nifty Realty dropped by 2.85 per cent, trading at 967 level. Nifty Media followed suit and was down by 1.13 per cent, trading at 1,714. 

Auto stocks shine

Auto stocks witnessed a strong performance on Wednesday, mirroring the trend seen in Japanese auto firms. The uptrend came after the US announced a 'massive' trade deal with Japan, which includes a 15 per cent tariff on Japanese exports.  "Japan will invest, at my direction, $550 billion into the United States, which will receive 90 per cent of the Profits. This deal will create hundreds of thousands of jobs— there has never been anything like it. Perhaps most importantly, Japan will open their country to trade, including cars and trucks, rice and certain other agricultural products, and other things," US President Trump said in a social media post.

Shares of Tata Motors were trading at ₹686.25, up by nearly 2 per cent on the National Stock Exchange. Maruti Suzuki shares were trading at ₹12,644, up by 1.22 per cent, whereas Mahindra and Mahindra shares were up by 1.4 per cent, logging an intraday high of ₹3,303. READ MORE

That apart, FMCG stocks took a downturn after industry player Colgate Palmolive announced lower-than-expected results for Q1FY26. The company's net profit figure for the quarter stood at ₹320.62 crore, marking a decline of 11.9 per cent from ₹363.98 crore recorded in the first quarter of the previous financial year. Shares of Colgate were trading at ₹2,287.70, down by 3.26 per cent.

New-age stocks to gain momentum?

D-street analysts believe that internet stocks are likely to gain momentum in the near term as investors are now seeing increased growth prospects for these companies. For instance, shares of Eternal (formerly Zomato) hit a record high on Tuesday despite reporting a 90 per cent dip in profit levels in Q1FY26. The optimism came-in as revenue surged 70 per cent, largely owing to Blinkit's stellar performance during the quarter. Similarly, Paytm reported a consolidated profit of ₹123 crore, as against a loss of ₹840 crore recorded in the corresponding period of FY25

"Q1 results of Eternal and Paytm indicate steady growth potential of the digital stocks which have a long runway of growth. Investor interest in the digital segment will remain high despite the high valuations," said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Investments.