Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv Rocket 8% and 6% as NBFCs Lead Market-Wide Rally 

Mumbai, July 31: Three very different corners of the market told a surprisingly similar story on Friday, as financial services, auto and oil & gas stocks all rode a broad-based rally to become the session’s most promising bundles of names. Non-bank lenders and insurers led the pack, with Nifty Financial Services Ex-Bank surging 2.93 per cent on the back of blockbuster moves in Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv. Auto stocks weren’t far behind, with Nifty Auto up 1.59 per cent as commercial vehicle and two-wheeler makers outpaced passenger-car majors. Oil & Gas rounded out the trio with a steadier 1.04 per cent gain, powered less by the sector heavyweight Reliance and more by gas utility GAIL’s sharp jump. Together, these three baskets offer investors three distinct ways to play the same underlying wave of risk appetite returning to Indian markets. 

1. Financial Services (Ex-Bank): NBFCs and Insurers Lead the Charge

This basket was Friday’s standout, up nearly 3 per cent as lenders, wealth managers and insurers all participated in the rally, with the sector’s biggest names posting some of the sharpest single-day gains across the entire market. NBFCs in particular dominated the leaderboard, suggesting the move was less about any single company-specific trigger and more a broad re-rating of the entire non-bank lending space. 

• Bajaj Finance — up 8.13% to Rs 1,139.10, the sector’s top performer 

• Bajaj Finserv — up 6.33% to Rs 2,030.20 

• Cholamandalam Investment & Finance — up 4.4% to Rs 1,851.90 

• Jio Financial Services — up 3.81% to Rs 256.37 

• BSE Ltd — up 3.39% to Rs 3,650 

• Bajaj Holdings & Investment — up 3.37% to Rs 11,340 

• Muthoot Finance — up 3.58% to Rs 3,116.50 

• HDFC AMC — up 2.62% to Rs 2,612.90 

• Aditya Birla Capital — up 2.64% to Rs 404.45 

• PNB Housing Finance — up 2.28% to Rs 1,048.50 

Not every stock in the pack joined the rally: LIC Housing Finance was the notable laggard, down 3.44% to Rs 522.30, while ICICI Lombard General Insurance and Max Financial Services also slipped modestly. 

2. Auto: Commercial Vehicles and Two-Wheelers Outshine Passenger Cars

Nifty Auto’s 1.59 per cent gain was driven disproportionately by commercial vehicle and ancillary names, while the two biggest passenger-vehicle names, Maruti and Tata Motors’ passenger arm, posted far more muted moves. Auto component suppliers also featured prominently among the day’s winners, hinting that the rally was as much about the broader supply chain as it was about vehicle sales momentum itself. 

• Ashok Leyland — up 5.1% to Rs 166.15, the sector’s biggest gainer 

• Mahindra & Mahindra — up 3.5% to Rs 3,398.50 

• TVS Motor Company — up 2.57% to Rs 4,316.40 

• Samvardhana Motherson International — up 2.75% to Rs 150.76 

• Tube Investments of India — up 2.36% to Rs 2,752.30 

• Bharat Forge — up 1.61% to Rs 2,199.50 

• Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles — up 1.57% to Rs 339.45 

• Hero MotoCorp — up 1.22% to Rs 5,390.10 

Bosch was the sector’s biggest drag, down 1.16% to Rs 41,070, while Exide Industries slipped 0.83% and Eicher Motors was nearly flat, down just 0.1%, showing the rally wasn’t universal even within a strong sector. 

3. Oil & Gas: Gas Utilities Outrun the Refining Majors

The steadiest of the three baskets, Nifty Oil & Gas rose 1.04 per cent, with city gas distributors and logistics names leading rather than the index’s dominant heavyweight, Reliance Industries. That pattern suggests the rally here was driven more by improving domestic gas demand and logistics sentiment than by any single move in global crude benchmarks, even as oil prices themselves have stayed volatile through the week. 

• GAIL (India) — up 4.63% to Rs 181.68, comfortably the sector’s top gainer 

• Aegis Logistics — up 2.11% to Rs 1,275.60 

• Chennai Petroleum Corporation — up 1.61% to Rs 1,258.10 

• Bharat Petroleum Corporation — up 1.35% to Rs 320.05 

• Reliance Industries — up 1.14% to Rs 1,307.70 

• ONGC — up 0.28% to Rs 242.27, a far more modest move relative to peers 

Aegis Vopak Terminals was the lone notable decliner in the pack, down 0.81% to Rs 289.93, while Indian Oil Corporation barely moved, up just 0.03%, underscoring how uneven the gains were even within a positive sector overall. 

Source

•  nseindia.com