The Indian stock benchmark indices opened at record levels on Tuesday morning following a rally in global markets as hopes of a COVID-19 vaccine elevated sentiment. At 10 am, the BSE Sensex opened 297 points, higher at 43983, while the NSE Nifty50 index opened at 12,861, up 81 points.
Investors' risk appetite was boosted after US-based drug firm Moderna Inc said its vaccine candidate has been found to be 94.5 percent effective in preventing COVID-19, based on Phase 3 trials. This comes just a week after Pfizer Inc and BioNTech announced that their vaccine candidate was more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19.
Broader markets aided the frontline indices with Nifty Small-cap and Mid Cap100 indices up 0.12 percent and 0.53 percent, respectively. Except for Nifty IT, all the sectoral indices were trading in the green led by Nifty Metal and Nifty PSU Bank. Tata Steel, Tata Motors, SBi, HDFC Bank and Bharti Airtel led the gains among Nifty50 constituents while BPCL, Hero MotoCorp, Dr. Reddys, HCL Technologies were the top index losers.
Shares of Tata Steel gained over 3 percent after the company reported better operational performance in the September quarter. The company’s consolidated net profit in Q2FY21 declined 59.6 percent to Rs 1,635.4 crore from Rs 4,043.5 crore, while revenue rose 7.4 percent to Rs 37,154 crore from Rs 34,759 crore, year on year.
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