Capital and sector-specific indices closed with marginal gains on Thursday ahead of the Q2 results of the country's largest IT services firm, TCS (NS:TCS), which will be declared later in the day. US inflation data after market hours are also watched closely.
At close, the Sensex was up 144 points at 81,611 (0.18 per cent) and Nifty was at 24,998, up 16 points or 0.07 per cent.
Nifty Bank closed at 51,530. It gained 523 points or 1.03 percent on the back of banking stocks that surged.
Kotak Mahindra Bank (NS:KTKM), JSW Steel (NS:JSTL), HDFC Bank (NS:HDBK), Power Grid (NS:PGRD), IndusInd Bank (NS:INBK), Maruti Suzuki (NS:MRTI), NTPC (NS:NTPC), Axis Bank (NS:AXBK), M&M (NS:MAHM), UltraTech Cement (NS:ULTC), Bajaj Finserv (NS:BJFS), Tata Steel (NS:TISC), ITC, Bajaj Finance (NS:BJFN), and Tata Steel led the Sensex pack.
The top losers from the group were Tech Mahindra (NS:TEML), Sun Pharma (NS:SUN), Infosys (NS:INFY), Titan (NS:TITN), Wipro (NS:WIPR), Tata Motors (NS:TAMO), L&T, TCS, HUL, Asian Paints (NS:ASPN), and Reliance (NS:RELI).
Small and medium stocks ended mixed. Nifty midcap 100 index closed at 58,935, down 166 points or 0.28 per cent and Nifty smallcap 100 index closed at 18,900, up 35 points or 0.19 per cent.
Among the sectoral indexes, auto, fin service, metal, energy, private bank, commodity gave the most. IT, PSU bank, pharma, FMCG, Realty, media were the ones that fell the most.
The overall trend of the market was positive.
On BSE, 2,259 shares closed in green, 1,654 in red, and 133 without any change. According to market experts, the market traded on a range-bound trend with a negative bias ahead of the start of the Q2 results. The Asian market began well but failed to sustain the gains as European markets traded on a negative trend ahead of the key US inflation data; global bond yields are rising, the experts added. Mixed caution This is because sub-par momentum in the global and rural demand has subdued the initial expectation of Q2FY25 results, they said.
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