FINAL TRADE: Nifty, Sensex scale new closing highs; Shriram Finance top Nifty gainer

Final Trade, Closing bell on July 26, 2024: Indian equities amid across-the-board buying ended at fresh closing highs on both indices. Sensex ended up by 1.62 per cent or 1,292.92 points at 81,332.72, while Nifty marked a fresh closing high of 24,834.85, after notching fresh highs in intra-day trade.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services on the markets performance said "The domestic market experienced a substantial rebound on the start of the next month expiry, recovering from the recent losses incurred following the Union budget. This upturn was driven by positive reactions to the better-than-expected US GDP, which augurs well for global demand. Investors are adopting buy on dip strategy, refocusing on quarterly earnings and stock-specific trends. Notably, gains were observed across sectors, with Metals and IT leading, and midcaps outperforming."

Sectorally, the gains were led by metal, followed by the IT and auto pack. IT pack emerged strong after the better-than-estimated GDP numbers released in the US.

Bank Nifty which toppled sharply showed resilence and ended higher by 0.8 per cent at 51,295.95 points, with SBI, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank and PNB contributing to the gains in today's session.

Meeta Shetty, Fund Manager at Tata Asset Management  on the IT sector earnings thus far said, "The Indian IT results so far has been mixed on the revenue growth but on the positive side, most companies indicated green shoots in the spends on discretionary projects as well as some large verticals like BFSI. BFSI sector is the largest contributor to revenue for the large IT companies and has been seeing tepid growth for the last few quarters. The outlook for the BFSI vertical which the companies have provided indicates it has turned back to growth. If one corroborates this with the commentary of large global banks, it increases our confidence on this vertical’s growth outlook. Though the quarterly data from US banks on tech spending doesn’t show any meaningful change in trends yet."

 Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities is of the view that today's sharp rebound signifies that India remains a good long-term bet and the economy continues to show strong resilience in spite of global uncertainty and geo-political tensions. Also, most of the blue chips and mid-cap companies have reported better earnings, which is providing a major impetus to markets, he added.