Despite expiry markets stride up

Indian benchmark indices continued their upward rally on Thursday despite it being the last day for the March F&O series. Positive rollover data and a rally in IT stocks fuelled the rally. The BSE Sensex and Nifty50 were up 1 per cent each in the post-lunch session.

The BSE Sensex was trading at 38,547.28, up by 414.40 points or up by 1.09 per cent, while Nifty50 was at 11,561.85, up by 116.80 points or 1.02 per cent at 15:05 hours, on Thursday. Bank Nifty was at 30,480.05, up by 460.25 or 1.53 per cent.

Index heavyweights that moved the BSE Sensex were Reliance contributing 50.90 points, HDFC Bank contributed 43.87 points, ICICI Bank 43.28 points, ITC 41.98 points, HDFC 30.03 points, SBI and Infy around 30 points.

Market seems to have taken heart in the fact that F&O rollover data showed that Nifty futures rollover stood at 59 per cent as compared to 52 per cent rollovers seen in the last three series on Wednesday. Market-wide rollovers were at 67 per cent. Also, trading data showed that Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and Domestic Institutional funds (DIIs) were net buyers on Wednesday, 27 March 2019.

The top gainers on Sensex were HCL Tech at Rs. 1,074.70, up by 3.12 per cent, SBI at Rs. 316.15, up by 2.63 per cent, Sun Pharma was at Rs. 475.05 per share, up by 2.34 per cent and Infy up by Rs. 743.00, up by 1.91 per cent. Besides Yes Bank and ICICI Bank also gained more than 1.50 per cent.

Among the losers were ONGC, PowerGrid, Bajaj Auto down more than 1.50 per cent, while M&M, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel were down by around 1 per cent.