Sensex, Nifty opens higher ahead of Union Budget; IndusInd, ICICI among major gainers

New Delhi: Equity benchmark indices swung higher in volatile trade during early hours on Monday as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman prepared to present the Union Budget in Parliament.

At 10:15 am, the BSE S&P Sensex was up by 484 points or 1.05 per cent at 46,770 while the Nifty 50 ticked up by 117 points or 0.86 per cent to 13,751.

Most sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the green with Nifty financial service gaining by 1.3 per cent, private bank by 1.5 per cent and realty by 1.1 per cent. But Nifty pharma dipped by 1.2 per cent, IT by 0.8 per cent and FMCG by 0.1 per cent.

Among stocks, IndusInd Bank jumped by 7.6 per cent to Rs 910.95 per share while ICICI Bank moved up by 5.2 per cent and HDFC Bank by 2 per cent.

The other major gainers were housing finance major HDFC, Tata Steel, Maruti Suzuki, Sun Pharma besides energy majors like ONGC, IndianOil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation.

However, those which lost were Dr Reddy’s, Cipla, UPL, Axis Bank, Adani Ports, SBI Life, Tech Mahindra and Tata Consultancy Services.

Meanwhile, Asian shares tried to rally as Wall Street continued to struggle with doubts about vaccine rollouts and economic recovery.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan recouped early losses to rise by 0.7 per cent.

Japan’s Nikkei added 0.8 per cent while Chinese blue chips gained by 0.5 per cent as the country’s central bank injected more cash into money markets.