Midday report: Sensex jumps 273 points, Nifty up 91 points

Indian equity benchmarks lost their early gains but remained higher, on the back of positive cues from other Asian markets. Sentiments remained positive, as the commerce ministry in its latest data has said that India’s merchandise exports rose 2.14% to $36.27 billion in July 2022 as compared to $35.51 billion in July 2021. Merchandise imports in July 2022 were $66.27 billion, which is an increase of 43.61% over imports of $46.15 billion in July 2021.

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The Sensex is trading at 59,736.35, up by 273.57 points or 0.46% after trading in a range of 59,673.96 and 59,923.03. On the index, 23 stocks advanced and 7 stocks declined.

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The broader indices were trading in green with the BSE Midcap index up by 0.76% and the Small cap index up by 0.79%. The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 1.66%, Realty up by 1.30%, Consumer discretionary up by 1.28%, FMCG up by 1.16% and Industrials up by 0.94%, while Metal down by 0.38%, Telecom down by 0.14% and PSU down by 0.02% were the only losing indices on BSE.

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The top gainers on the Sensex were Maruti Suzuki up by 2.39%, Asian Paints up by 1.88%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.61%, Hindustan Unilever up by 1.49% and HDFC Bank up by 1.23%. On the flip side, SBI down by 0.91%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.71%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.28%, HCL Tech down by 0.27% and Tata Steel down by 0.22% were the top losers.

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The Nifty is trading at 17,788.85, up by 90.70 points or 0.51% after trading in a range of 17,764.05 and 17,839.10. On the index, 37 stocks advanced and 13 stocks declined.

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The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Ports & SEZ up by 3.68%, HDFC Life Insurance up by 3.53%, Eicher Motors up by 3.17%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.40% and SBI Life Insurance up by 2.23%. On the flip side, Grasim Industries down by 2.32%, ONGC down by 1.44%, Hindalco down by 0.96%, SBI down by 0.90% and Bharti Airtel down by 0.73% were the top losers.

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Asian markets were trading mostly in green with Nikkei 225 surging 8.65 points or 0.03% to 28,880.43, Hang Seng increased 22.78 points or 0.11% to 20,063.64, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 3.22 points or 0.02% to 15,420.57, KOSPI rose 6.16 points or 0.24% to 2,534.10, Shanghai Composite gained 1.97 points or 0.06% to 3,278.06 and Jakarta Composite soared 10.30 points or 0.15% to 7,103.58. On the flip side, Straits Times trembled 5.19 points or 0.16% to 3,251.63.