BENGALURU: A rally in energy and technology stocks propelled Indian shares to a firmer finish on Thursday, ending a four-session losing streak driven by worries around aggressive policy tightening by global central banks.
Notching their best session since the turn of the month, the NSE Nifty 50 index settled 0.74% higher at 16,478.10 and the S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.78% to 55,320.28.
Both the indexes have been buffeted in recent weeks by fears that aggressive tightening of monetary policy to combat stubborn inflation could stifle economic growth.
In a widely expected move on Wednesday, the Reserve Bank of India raised its key rate by 50 basis points after an off-cycle hike last month and signalled further tightening ahead.
Indian shares mark fourth day of losses as RBI hikes rate
Leading the gains on Thursday, energy stocks on the Nifty Energy jumped 1.2% as crude prices advanced on robust trade data from major oil consumer China.
The technology, pharma and infrastructure sub-indexes all closed up roughly 1% each. Real estate stocks, which had declined as much as 1.4% earlier in the session, closed up 0.26%.
“As long as nothing decisive is happening globally, we will continue to trade in a tight range and likely see more sector-specific moves, instead of major moves by benchmarks,” said Ajit Mishra, vice president, research at Religare Broking.
Globally, equities were lower ahead of a meeting of the European Central Bank where the ECB is expected to signal it is ready to raise interest rates for the first time in a decade.
Meanwhile, India’s daily COVID-19 cases rose further, with government data released on Thursday showing daily cases rose 7,240 in the last 24 hours, the highest since March 2.
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