Sensex ended the day with gains of 1,325.34 points or 4.04 percent at 34103.48, and the Nifty surged 433.55 points or 4.52 percent at 10023.70.
State Bank of India, Tata Steel and HDFC are the top gainers while SBI, Reliance Industries and HDFC Bank are the most active stocks.
MEANWHILE The government and the RBI will take all necessary steps to quell the “fear sentiment” created due to coronavirus, Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said on Friday.
He said the fall in Indian stock indices is lower than the decline witnessed globally and the situation in India will stabilise over the next few weeks as focus shifts to economic fundamentals like declining inflation, growing industrial production and adequate forex reserves.
“The government is seriously considering and looking at all aspects of this situation and the government together with the regulator will definitely respond when it is necessary. Market reaction is not reflecting fundamentals, fundamentals (of Indian economy) are improving,” Subramanian told reporters here.
The Indian rupee staged a recovery in the afternoon session on Friday, trading 36 paise higher against the US dollar, after the Reserve Bank stepped in to maintain sufficient liquidity in the panic-stricken currency market.
Seeing the heavy rush for the US dollar among participants, the RBI announced liquidity measures such as buy-sell swap of USD 2 billion to increase dollar availability with banks and ease pressure on the rupee.
At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 74.39 and went on to hit the day’s low of 74.50 against the US dollar as investors panicked weighing turmoil in financial markets globally due to coronavirus pandemic
Asian shares plunged, then recovered slightly as Friday the 13th brought still more turmoil to markets reeling from uncertainty over the coronavirus crisis.
Benchmarks in Japan, Thailand and India sank as much as 10 percent following Wall Street’s biggest drop since the Black Monday crash of 1987. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell nearly 6 percent. Sensex swayed between gains and losses after a 10 percent crash briefly halted trading. In Bangkok, the Thailand SET gained 0.5 percent after a temporary suspension of trading earlier in the day.
Markets worldwide have retreated as fears of economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis deepen and the meltdown in the US, the world’s biggest economy, batters confidence around the globe.
