Gainers & Losers: Shriram Finance, IndiGo, L&T Among Heavyweights Powering Surge

Mumbai, April 8: On Wednesday, the Indian stock markets marked the continuation of their historic bull run with the BSE Sensex rallying 2,946 points or 3.95% to 77,562 and the NSE Nifty 50 advancing 873 points or 3.78% to 23,997 — the highest single-session point rise for both the indices in recent times.

Three heavyweight stocks that made a disproportionate contribution to the intraday rally were Shriram Finance, which zoomed over 10% to be the largest Nifty 50 contributor from the financial space, L&T which added close to 7.70% in a day to gain thousands of crores in market cap and HDFC Bank which gained 5.89% on volume of over 7 crore shares worth ₹56,891 crore in one trading session together pulling the broad index sharply north.

The trigger for this massive move was, however, very clear: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced a full and immediate ceasefire between Iran and the US, covering all fronts including Lebanon and Iran’s foreign minister confirmed safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz — the one key condition which President Trump had made clear must be met — with immediate effect.

Top 5 Gainers: Financials and Cyclicals Vehemently Return

Shriram Finance was the single biggest gainer amongst all Nifty 50 stocks on the day, closing 10.14% higher at ₹1,025 as against a closing price of ₹930 on Tuesday, a single-day recovery of ₹95 which was very much in-line with the repricing of risk across high-beta financials in a day which saw geopolitical concerns give way in a big way.

TMPV gained 8.75% to ₹335 from its previous close of ₹308, which was followed by Adani Enterprises which gained 8.65% to close at ₹2,044 against Tuesday’s closing of ₹1,882 and Eicher Motors which jumped 8.55% to ₹7,170 from its previous close of ₹6,605 with the auto major’s move on the day clearly reflecting the direct benefit on vehicle demand sentiment of plunging crude oil prices.

The list was rounded off by IndiGo which gained 8.09% to ₹4,614 from a closing price of ₹4,268 on Tuesday with the airline’s battered stock surging on the prospect of sharply lower jet fuel expenses after the ceasefire-fuelled tumble in Brent crude to around $95 a barrel.

Losers: Energy and Defensive Stocks Yield

On a day when the buying was nearly-universal, the list of losers was remarkably short and comprised almost entirely of stocks whose revenues are directly linked to higher commodity prices.

The session’s steepest faller was Coal India which declined 3.02% to ₹449 from Tuesday’s closing of ₹463 as the fall in energy prices significantly cut down the earnings outlook for the state-run coal behemoth.

Tech Mahindra, on the other hand, slipped 1.35% to ₹1,453 from ₹1,473 — a modest pullback after the IT sector’s strong two-day performance as investors rotated back into cyclicals from quality defensives. Nestle India fell 0.67% to ₹1,214 from ₹1,222 and Wipro, meanwhile, declined 0.55% to ₹203 from ₹204, with both the stocks recording mild profit booking rather than any fundamental selling pressure.

ONGC edged down 0.28% to ₹285 from ₹286, Hindalco too dipped 0.28% to ₹951 and Sun Pharma slipped 0.29% to ₹1,713 — the defensive and commodity-linked names which had been relative outperformers during the period of crisis, now underperforming on the day as money got rotated aggressively into the beaten-down cyclicals.

Sectoral Indexes Paint the Bigger Picture

Away from the much-talked-about headline indices, several other less-observed sectoral benchmarks made some of the most notable moves of the session, telling a bigger story about where the institutional money was moving with the greatest conviction. The Nifty Capital Markets jumped 5.73% — one of the highest sectoral moves of the day — as brokerages, exchanges and asset managers were repriced up on expectations of a sustained recovery in market volumes and trading activity after the return of investor sentiment.

Nifty India Tourism, meanwhile, rocketed 5.72% as the sector saw a sharp reversal of fortune with hospitality and travel companies which had been hammered by concerns over extended conflict disrupting international travel and energy prices. Nifty Next 50, in a classic risk-on move, advanced 4.74% to meaningfully outperform the Nifty 50’s gain of 3.78% — suggesting that institutional investors were looking beyond the safety of blue chips to buy mid-tier large-caps with greater upside leverage to the recovery.

Nifty Smallcap 50 and Nifty Microcap 250, meanwhile, climbed 4.62% and jumped 4.19% respectively, confirming that Wednesday’s rally wasn’t merely a large-cap phenomenon but a broad-based, full-spectrum re-rating of Indian equities from top to bottom.