Sensex Rallies Nearly 1,200 Points; Nifty Settles Above 14,600

The Budget-day momentum continued for the second straight session, with the BSE Sensex reclaiming the 50,000 mark and the NSE Nifty clawing back above 14,700 on the back of a record high in the Nifty Bank index and buying spree across sectors. The BSE Sensex finally ended below the 50,000 mark at 49,797.72, higher by 1,197.11 points or 2.46 per cent and the NSE Nifty settled at 14,647.85, up 366.65 points or 2.57 per cent. All the BSE sectoral indices ended in the green, with financial and capital goods indices soaring more than 3 per cent.

The benchmarks had recorded their best performance on a budget day in over two decades after the finance minister announced a slew of measures to revive the pandemic-hit economy.

The Nifty Bank index surged 3.5 per cent to 34,267.90 after the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the divestment of two public sector undertaking (PSU) banks in FY22 and proposed a bad bank to house loans gone sour. Among individual financial stocks, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Bajaj Finance and Kotak Mahindra Bank gained 2.2 per cent to 5.6 per cent each.

The NSE Capital goods index also zoomed over 3 per cent as Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a slew of projects aimed at rejuvenating the infra sector. Ms Sitharaman expanded the National Infrastructure Pipeline to cover 7,400 projects by 2025 and also announced the creation of a development finance institution called the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development. Infra major L&T gained nearly 5 per cent, while Shree Cements, Ultra Tech Cement and Grasim added 6-7 per cent each.

(NDTV FEED)