Sensex climbs 137 points ahead of RBI policy meet

Firm Asian cues tracking record closing in the United States after strong employment numbers released on Friday bolstered sentiment.

The Nifty50 was trading at 8,709 up 26 points or 0.30 per cent.

However, caution ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) monetary policy review and the debate over the GST bill in the Lok Sabha capped gains.

The barometer 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 28,181.92 points, traded at 28,154.95 points (at 2.30 p.m.) – up 76.60 points or 0.27 per cent from the previous close at 28,078.35 points.

Both the key indices closed the day’s trade in the green, as healthy buying was witnessed in oil and gas, automobile and consumer durables stocks.

Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls cited that positive global cues and sideways movement in USD/INR futures prices supported the uptrend in Nifty during the intra-day session.

Moreover, country’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp posted 18.13 per cent jump in standalone net profit at Rs 883.10 crore for the first quarter ended on June 30, 2016, came as a positive. The Dow gained 1 percent while the S&P 500 rose 0.9 percent and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.1 percent to reach record highs.

Major gainers were Adani Ports (2.80 pc), HDFC Ltd (1.70 pc), Reliance Ind (1.49 pc), Dr Reddy’s (1.11 pc), Lupin (1.09 pc), Infosys (1.07 pc), M&M (1.03 pc), Power Grid (0.99 pc), Wipro (0.95 pc) and Maruti Suzuki (0.88 pc). Sun Pharma (down 0.3 per cent), TCS (down 0.3 per cent), Wipro (down 0.65 per cent) and Bharti Airtel (down 0.34 per cent) were the major Sensex losers. The rally in global equities was triggered by strong jobs data in the U.S., which indicates that the world’s biggest economy is on the path of recovery, analysts said.

Among other Asian markets, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 1.21 per cent while Japan’s Nikkei surged 1.99 per cent in early trade on August 8.

The German DAX rallied 1.4 percent, France’s CAC 40 index added 1.5 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.8 percent.