Mumbai, July 17 : Reliance Industries Ltd and some Banks gained to help lift Sensex 548 points on Friday as investors appeared to be in a mood to focus on June end quarterly earnings by companies even as Covid-19 pandemic continued to rise in India and abroad thereby contributing to weaken the economy the world over.
IT Major HCL and Britannia contributed to lift the Sensex as they posted robust growth in net profits for the quarter ending June. The market was driven by liquidity and upbeat quarterly earnings, said experts.
The 30-share pack Sensex saw the index closing 548 points higher at Rs 37,020. Nifty rose 162 points to close 10,902. The benchmark indexes rose for the fifth week in a row.
In all, 25 Sensex stocks closed higher. RIL continued to rise and increased 3.70 per cent thereby contributing the most to the benchmark’s gains.
HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank added 3.46 per cent and 2.64 per cent respectively.
BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap gained 1.55 per cent and 1.11 per cent respectively.
BSE Oil and Gas was the top sectoral gainer as it rose 5.05 per cent. This was followed by BSE Energy which went up 4.06 per cent. BSE IT was the only index to close in the red by dropping 0.86 per cent.
Britannia hit a fresh high in early trade but closed 1.81 per cent lower despite its net profit in June end quarter doubling the figure a year ago.
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) climbed 12.65 per cent as reports trickled in that Major energy players of the world had shown interest in buying the company.
Amidst news of privatization, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOL) climbed 11.56 per cent, 6.84 per cent and 3.15 per cent respectively.
YES Bank rose 2.86 per cent as its Follow-on Public Offer was subscribed 86 per cent on day 3 of the process so far.
The total Coronavirus cases in India rose to 10,03,832 with a total of 25,602 deaths. In the last 24 hours, 34,956 cases and 687 deaths were reported.
Experts said that investors are likely to be cautious and may watch rise in Coronavirus cases, progress in domestic and foreign vaccines to treat Covid-19, the movement of Global Markets and June Quarter Corporate earnings.
