Equities trim gains as border tension with China escalates (Ld)

Mumbai, June 16 (IANS) The Indian equity indices closed in the green on Tuesday, although they pared major gains made during the initial trade over escalation in the India-China border tension.

After the gap-up opening, indices fell from the day’s highs after reports came in that three Indian Army men — an officer and two soldiers — were killed on Monday night during a violent face-off with Chinese People’s Liberation Army at Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh region.

Initially, the stocks surged on the back of a similar trend in the Asian markets. Global markets rose after the US Federal Reserve on Monday announced its plan to buy individual corporate bonds.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said: “Indian equity market after seeing gap-up opening, witnessed a highly volatile session but finally managed to end with gains. The selling pressure accelerated after the news of some tension on the India-China border.”

He noted that post the slump due to the border tension with China, investors set aside this fear and markets finally managed to recover.

Rahul Sharma, Head of Research at Equity99 Advisors, said: “It was an extremely volatile trading session where markets behaved in a very zig-zag fashion but finally settled higher.”

Private sector banks and select NBFC stocks continued to reel under selling pressure, Sharma added.

On the technical front, Khemka said that an immediate support for Nifty is placed at 9,800-9,700 and there may be an upward movement towards 10,040-10,180.

On Tuesday, Nifty50 closed at 9,914.00, higher by 100.30 points or 1.02 per cent from the previous close of 9,813.70 points.

The BSE Sensex settled at 33,605.22, higher by 376.42 points or 1.13 per cent from the previous close of 33,228.80.

It had opened at 33,853.72 and touched an intra-day high of 34,022.01 and a low of 32,953.30 points.

–IANS

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