MUMBAI: Equity markets ended an eventful and highly volatile session with significant gains on Friday after posting a record intra-day recovery as investors temporarily put aside worries over coronavirus spread and indulged in some bargain buying. The Nifty50 index was locked in 10 per cent lower circuit early morning, prompting a trading halt for 45 minutes.
However, once the markets re-opened, the headline indices Sensex and Nifty shot up as much as 5,381 points and 1,604 points, respectively, from their early morning lows. Volitality index surged over 24 per cent during the session.
The Sensex closed 1,325 pts, or 4.04 percent, higher at 34,103 and the Nifty50 index a tad above 10,000 level at 10,023.65, up 433 points, or 4.54 percent. The rebound was led by index heavyweights like HDFC which ended 10 per cent higher and State Bank of India which zoomed 14 per cent. Reliance Industries was also up over 5 percent. In the end, 27 out of the 30 Sensex constituents ended the session in green.
The broader markets also joined the benchmarks in the upmove. The S&P BSE MidCap index closed 258 points, or 2.09 percent, higher and the S&P BSE SmallCap index gained 146 points or 1.26 percent.
On a weekly basis, however, the Sensex posted the worst week in over a decade — down 11.35 percent while the Nifty50 index slipped 11.6 percent in the week.
Stocks plunged on Friday with coronavirus panic selling hitting nearly every asset class, before finding some kind of floor as hopes turned to a US stimulus package.
Japan’s Nikkei fell 10 percent before paring the drop to close 6 percent lower. Australia’s S&P/ASX200 had its wildest trading day on record, falling past 8 percent before surging in the last minutes of trade to settle 4.4 percent higher after the close.
In Europe too, markets bounced back from their worst day ever. (Agencies)