Indian equity benchmarks recovered intraday losses, albeit in a volatile trading session, in noon deals on Monday on the back of value buying in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Infosys, Tata Steel, Larsen & Toubro, and ICICI Bank. Sensex rose as much as 1,165 points from the day's lowest level and the Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 16,693 after hitting a low of 16,356. Analysts said that hopes of de-escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine after renewed sanctions on Russia by Western countries to block Russian banks from the SWIFT global payment system led to positivity in the markets. Meanwhile, reports of talks between Russia and Ukraine also helped in recovery.
As of 12:37 pm, Sensex advanced 133 points to 55,992 and the Nifty 50 index rose 53 points to 16,711. The ruble plunged to a record low of less than 1 U.S. cent in value Monday after Russia was cut off from the global bank payments system in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian currency dropped nearly 26 per cent to 105.27 per dollar, down from about 84 per dollar late Friday.
Back home, twelve of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading lower led by the Nifty Auto index's 1 per cent decline. Nifty Bank, Financial Services, FMCG, Pharma, and Private Bank indices also fell between 0.5-0.8 per cent.
On the other hand, the Nifty Metal index jumped 4 per cent. Nifty IT and Oil & Gas indexes also rose 0.7 and 1.5 per cent respectively.
Broader markets also recovered from intraday lows as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes turned flat. Hindalco was the top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 7 per cent to Rs 571. Analysts say Hindalco stands to gain from price rise in international markets after sanctions were imposed on Russia.
Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Bharat Petroleum, Power Grid, Coal India, NTPC, Reliance Industries and Tech Mahindra also rose between 1.5-5 per cent.
On the flipside, HDFC Life, Dr Reddy's Labs, Eicher Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Nestle India, Hero MotoCorp and Maruti Suzuki fell between 1.4-2.4 per cent.
