Nifty Reclaims 23,200, Sensex Up 1,300 Points As IT Stocks Lead: Midday Market Update

India's benchmark equity indices were up in trade for the third consecutive session on a day the central bank's monetary policy committee kept the key lending rates unchanged for the eighth time.

At 11:47 a.m. on Friday, the Nifty was 358 points or 1.57% up at 23,179.5, while the Sensex was 1,243 points or 1.66% higher at 76,317. Both the Nifty and the Sensex rose over 1.5% during the day to reclaim 23,000 and 76,500 respectively.

In the near term, the market is likely to be weighed down by the huge selling by the foreign institutional investors, which has touched Rs 24,960 crore cumulatively during the last three days, according to VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Therefore, the large caps in sectors like financials and IT, where the FIIs have huge assets under management, may underperform, he said. "This trend will change when the FIIs turn buyers, which is inevitable." 

There is excessive speculative activity in stocks where the floating stock is very low, Vijayakumar said. "Retail investors venturing into these speculative activities is highly risky."

Shares of Infosys Ltd., Reliance Industries Ltd., HDFC Bank Ltd., ICICI Bank Ltd. and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. contributed the most to the gains in the Nifty.

SBI Life Insurance Co., Bajaj Auto Ltd., Tata Consumer Products Ltd., and Britannia Industries Ltd. weighed on the Nifty.

All the sectors on the NSE were trading higher during the session, with the Nifty IT and Realty leading the gains.

The broader markets also advanced, with the BSE MidCap being 0.66% higher and the SmallCap rising 1.68%. All 20 sectoral indices on the BSE advanced, with the BSE 250 SmallCap Index being the top gainer.

The market breadth was skewed in the favour of buyers as 2,968 stocks rose, 705 fell and 136 remained unchanged on the BSE.