Indian shares ended Tuesday's trading session with gains for the fifth straight day with the broader NSE Nifty50 at a nearly four-month high. The benchmark BSE Sensex rose 21 points to settle at 58,136, while the Nifty50 closed at 17,345. Broader market indices outperformed their frontline peers with Nifty Bank adding 121 points to end at 38,024, while the midcap index surged 100 points to end at 30,228.
Among major stock gainers,
ITC shares surged as much as 3 percent after the cigarettes-to-hotels conglomerate reported robust earnings for the April to June 2022 quarter that have got a thumbs up from brokerages.
Among other major gainers,
Zomato shares were locked at a 20 percent upper price band after the online food delivery platform reported its earnings for the first quarter of the financial year 2023 with a sharp decline in losses as both costs as well as revenue showed improvement.
Telecom stocks saw mixed moves, a day after the government received bids worth a record Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the seven-day-long auction for 5G spectrum.
Bharti Airtel shares fell as much as 0.9 percent in early deals, and Vodafone Idea gained 4.6 percent. The stock of Reliance Industries — whose digital arm Reliance Jio Infocomm participated in the auction — rose as much as 1.2 percent.
Automobile stocks traded under pressure, with Escorts Kubota, Eicher Motors, Ashok Leyland, and Hero MotoCorp falling 2-6 percent.
GAIL India stock slumped nearly 4 percent in the trade as India's largest gas distributor is struggling to supply to its fertiliser, power and petchem customers after Russia's Gazprom has been unable to meet its gas supply to them.
Escorts Kubota plunged nearly 7 percent after the company reported a sharp 20.35 percent decline in standalone net profit for the April-June quarter.
Among losers,
UPL shares slumped more than 3.6 percent as CLSA lowered its earnings estimates and reduced its target on the fertiliser stock. Hero MotoCorp, Britannia, Tech Mahindra and Hindalco were other major losers.
Elsewhere in Asia, markets in China and Hong Kong slumped as worries over geopolitical tensions took a toll on investor sentiment. China's Shanghai Composite slumped over 2 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng also slid 2.4 percent dragged by index-heavyweights Alibaba and Meituan.
South Korea's Kospi snapped a six-day winning streak and ended 0.5 percent lower after the country's consumer price inflation rose at its fastest pace since 1998 in July. Japan's Nikkei 225 also slipped 1.4 percent, weighed down by a strengthened yen.
