Equity Indicies Witnessed Hike of 1.3% with ICICI Bank and Reliance in focus

Equity benchmark indices rose nearly 1.3 per cent during early hours following some reports that India's second wave of coronavirus will peak soon even as over 3.5 lakh new cases were reported in the past 24 hours.

Positive global cues also helped the market sentiment with domestic investors setting aside for a while concerns over the economic impact of lockdowns and weakness in rupee.

At 10:25 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 658 points or 1.37 per cent at 48,536 while the Nifty 50 edged higher by 179 points or 1.25 per cent to 14,520.

Except for Nifty pharma which dipped slightly, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in green zone with Nifty private bank advancing by 2.6 per cent, PSU bank by 1.9 per cent, financial service by 2 per cent and realty by 1.7 per cent.

Among stocks, ICICI Bank moved up by 5 per cent to Rs 598.80 per share while Axis Bank rose by 3.5 per cent, Kotak Mahindra Bank by 2.1 per cent and IndusInd Bank by 1.9 per cent.

Bajaj Finance was up by 2.8 per cent, State Bank of India by 2.6 per cent, UltraTech Cement by 3 per cent, Eicher Motors by 1.7 per cent and Asian Paints by 1.7 per cent.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries rose by 2.6 per cent to Rs 1,954.10 per share after announcing starting of production from a gas field in block KG D6 off the east coast in collaboration with bp.

However, among the losers wre Cipla, Sun Pharma, HCL Technologies, Britannia and Hero MotoCorp.

Meanwhile, Asian stocks rose as signs the world economic recovery was well on track bolstered risk appetite.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan jumped 0.3 per cent. South Korea's Kospi index rose 0.4 per cent while Japan's Nikkei reversed early losses to be up 0.1 per cent.