Indian headline indices ended Saturday in the green recording their third successive session gains led by uptick in metal, auto and FMCG stocks. While The S&P BSE Sensex recorded a new lifetime high of 73,994.7 before settling at 73,806.15, higher by 60.80 points or 0.08%, the broader Nifty closed at 22,378.40, higher by 39.65 or 0.18%. The 50-stock index scaled a new peak of 22,419.55.

Top Gainers and losers

The Nifty breadth remained skewed in favour of the bulls with 35 stocks ending in the green, 14 in the red while one stock remained unchanged. The highest impetus was given by Tata Steel in terms of its contribution to the index and was followed by ITC and Tata Motors.

The top gainers were Tata Steel, Hero MotoCorp, Tata Motors, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone, and JSW Steel while the top losers were Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, NTPC, Sun Pharmaceuticals and Nestle India.

Out of the 15 Nifty sectoral indices, barring the Nifty Private Bank, all others ended with a positive bias. The top gainers were Nifty Media (1.78%), Nifty Metal (1.58%) and Nifty Consumer Durables (1.16%). Nifty Private Bank ended with a minor decline of 3 points or 0.01% over the Thursday closing.

Broader markets also fared well with Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 gaining 0.74% and 0.69%, respectively.

Expert Take

Commenting on the day’s trade, Rupak De, senior technical analyst at LKP Securities said Nifty struggled to withstand the selling pressure at higher levels after beginning the day on a positive note and ultimately closing at the day’s lowest point. According to him, the overall sentiments remain positive and the index must surpass the 22,400 mark to trigger a new leg of rally. “A decisive breakthrough above 22,400 could propel the index towards 22,600. On the downside, support is situated at 22,250-22,200,” De said.As for Bank Nifty, the trade remained range-bound throughout the day with low participation. Nevertheless, the overall sentiment remains positive as long as it stays above 42,000, he opined. A decisive breakthrough above 47,500 could potentially propel the index towards 48,200 while on the downside the support is identified at 47,000.

About special trading session

Stock exchanges BSE and NSE decided to keep the market open despite the weekend holiday on Saturday as part of its strategy to assess the system’s preparation in the event of an unanticipated tragedy.

This happened for the second time in the calendar year 2024 and Saturday’s was not a mock trading session. The special session was a part of the framework for the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) for stock exchanges and depositories and involved intraday switchover to the disaster recovery site.

The trading day was divided into two sessions. The first one, which involved live trading from the primary site, started from 9:15 am till 10 am. Pre-open timings for the first session were from 9 am to 9:08 am.

The second session, which involved a switchover to the disaster recovery site, ran from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.