Sensex spurts 737 pts, Nifty above 16,550 mark

The headline equity indices continued to trade with strong gains in the afternoon trade. Positive global cues boosted sentiment. The Nifty traded above the 16,550 mark. Barring the Nifty Realty index, all the sectoral indices on the NSE were in the green.

At 13:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 737.85 points or 1.35% to 55,505.47. The Nifty 50 index gained 216.20 points or 1.32% to 16,556.75.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.55% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index added 0.60%.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 2,067 shares rose and 1,206 shares fell. A total of 147 shares were unchanged.

Gainers & Losers:

Tech Mahindra (up 3.29%), TCS (up 2.52%) and HCL Technologies (up 2.48%) were major Nifty gainers.

HDFC Life Insurance Company (down 1.83%), Mahindra & Mahindra (down 1.29%), Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (down 0.99%), Eicher Motors (down 0.83%) and Power Grid Corporation of India (down 0.64%) were majority Nifty losers.

ONGC jumped 3.99% while the scrip of Reliance Industries advanced 2.82% after the Central Government on Wednesday (20 July 2022) slashed the windfall tax on petrol, diesel, jet fuel and crude oil following a decline in international rates.

The government has reduced the windfall tax on diesel and aviation turbine fuel (ATF) by Rs 2 a litre and scrapped Rs 6 per litre tax on export of petrol. The tax on ATF has now been cut to Rs 4 a litre from Rs 6 and on diesel to Rs 11 from Rs 13 per litre. Further, the Rs 23,250 per tonne additional tax on crude oil produced domestically has been cut to Rs 17,000 per tonne.

Global Markets:

Shares in Europe and Asia advanced on Wednesday after a sharp bounce in U.S. stocks overnight.

China kept its one-year and five-year loan prime rates unchanged at 3.7% and 4.45% Wednesday.

Investors will keep a close eye on the European Central Bank's policy meeting in Frankfurt on Thursday, with policymakers having given advance notice of a first hike in 11 years but facing a backdrop of slowing growth amid the war in Ukraine and subsequent threats to energy supplies.

U.K. inflation hit yet another new 40-year high in June as food and energy prices continued to soar, escalating the country's historic cost-of-living crisis. The consumer price inflation hit an annual rate of 9.4% in June compared with 9.1% in May, data showed on Wednesday.

"Indicative modeled consumer price inflation estimates suggest that the CPI rate would last have been higher around 1982, where estimates range from nearly 11% in January down to approximately 6.5% in December," the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics said in a report on Wednesday.

U.S. stocks closed with sharp gains on Tuesday as more companies joined big banks in reporting earnings that beat forecasts, offering respite to investors worried about higher inflation and a tightening Fed denting the corporate bottomline.

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