Sensex up 400 points, Nifty over 9,300-mark

After opening on a volatile note, the topline equity market indices on the BSE and National Stock Exchange (NSE) were trading in the positive territory during the morning deals on Tuesday.

In the opening bell, both the indices had opened in the positive zone, however, they failed to hold on to the gains and within minutes erased all the gains and slipped into the red. The trade was extremely volatile during the first half-hour of trade on Tuesday with sharp swings across the two indices.

During the early trade, the volatility index or India VIX rose as much as 7.14 per cent to levels of 63.14, its highest since December 2008 levels.

At 10:11 am, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 413.56 points (1.32 per cent) at 31,803.63, while the Nifty 50 was at 9,332.55, up 135.15 points (1.47 per cent).

Earlier today, the Sensex had opened over 200 points higher from the previous close and rose as much as 441.56 points (1.41 per cent) to 31,831.63, however within a couple of minutes after this, it crashed into the red zone. During the early deals, it has slipped as much as 644.88 points (2.05 per cent) to 30,745.19.

Likewise, the Nifty 50 too had opened 88 points higher and had risen as high as 9,314.60, up 117.20 points (1.27 per cent) from the previous close during the opening deals. But the 50-share NSE benchmark slipped soon after this and declined 180.55 points (1.96 per cent) to 9,016.85.

On Monday, the Sensex had settled at 31,390.07, down 2,713.41 points (7.96 per cent), while the Nifty cracked 757.80 points (7.61 per cent) to end at 9,197.40.

Now, among the Sensex stocks, gains were being led by Sun Pharma, Power Grid, HCL Technologies, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank and Maruti Suzuki after the first hour of trade.

Among the sectoral indices on NSE, the Nifty Metal index was up over 4 per cent led by Coal India, Jindal Steel & Power, Steel Authority of India and Vedanta. This apart, the Nifty Pharma index too was up over 3.5 per cent led by Aurobindo Pharma and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries.

Rupee

The rupee appreciated by 25 paise to 74 against the US dollar in early trade on Tuesday tracking positive opening in domestic equities and the Reserve Bank of India's liquidity enhancing measures.

The RBI announced another round of USD 2 billion dollar-rupee swap on March 23 and up to Rs 1 lakh crore of long-term repo operations as and when required.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 74.16, then gained further ground and touched a high of 74.00 against the US dollar, registering a rise of 25 paise over its previous close. On Monday, the rupee had settled at 74.25 against the greenback.

Global market

In the global markets, the Asian shares fell on Tuesday in a topsy-turvy session following one of Wall Street's biggest one-day routs in history as headlines about the coronavirus outbreak and its global economic impact whiplashed investor sentiment.

Financial markets cratered on Monday with the S&P 500 tumbling 12 per cent, its biggest drop since "Black Monday" three decades ago, as a series of emergency central bank rate cuts globally only added to the recent sense of investor panic.

While some markets such as US stock futures bounced in Asian trade after the major plunge, there were no convincing reasons for a sustained rally.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gave up early gains to trade 0.5 per cent lower. Japan's Nikkei stock index fell 0.06 per cent and South Korea's KOSPI was off 2.16 per cent. Australian shares were up 2.73 per cent although this followed a plunge of almost 10 per cent on Monday.