Sensex, Nifty Off Day's Highs; Banks Gain On Supreme Court Verdict

The benchmarks staged a gap up opening wherein the Sensex rose as much as 456 points to move above 50,000-mark and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 14,867.75.

The Indian equity benchmarks came off intraday highs in noon deals on the back of heightened volatility. The volatility index on the National Stock Exchange spiked 3.59 per cent to 21.23. The benchmarks staged a gap up opening wherein the Sensex rose as much as 456 points to move above 50,000-mark and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 14,867.75. However, selling pressure in heavyweights like HDFC, ITC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Power Grid and Bharti Airtel weighed on the benchmarks.  As of 12:45 pm, the Sensex was up 113 points at 49,884 and Nifty rose 26 points to 14,766.  Eight of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty PSU Bank index's nearly 2 per cent gain. Banking shares witnessed buying interest after the Supreme Court  refused to extend the six-month loan moratorium period offered by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last year, saying that it is 'policy decision' on the part of the Centre and RBI. Delivering its verdict on a batch of petitions seeking extension of the loan moratorium period and other reliefs, the bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan said the top court cannot do judicial review of the Centre's financial policy decisions unless they are malafide and arbitrary.  Nifty Realty, Private Bank, Bank, Auto and IT shares were also witnessing buying interest. On the other hand, metal, media and FMCG indexes were trading with a negative bias.  Mid- and small-cap shares were trading mixed as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.8 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.2 per cent.