Nifty inches towards 8400 in late recovery

3:30 pm: Equities held on to their late gains, with both the Sensex and Nifty closing above key 28,000 and 8,400 marks.

At close, the Nifty rose 0.22 percent, or 19 points, to 8,401 while the Sensex gained 0.12 percent, or 34 points, to 28,067.

Early in the day, high beta shares edged lower, but several sectors such as banks and oil & gas staged a smart recovery to close in the green. Metals and capital goods, though, closed 0.8 percent lower.

But the best performers of the day were IT and pharma, both helped by a depreciation in the rupee.

Cipla jumped 3.2 percent after announcing it had tied up with Serum Institute of India to launch vaccines in Europe.

The IT pack got a further boost with Tech Mahindra rallying about 3 percent, amid speculation it would announce an acquisition at a press conference it has scheduled at 4 pm today.

While Tech Mah only said it would make a “strategic announcement”, traders zeroed in on MindTree (up 5.5 percent) and Geometric (up 9.5 percent) as possible takeover candidates.

Early on, some more M&A buzz doing the rounds was in the form of speculation Kotak Mahindra Bank. More Information please visit this site www.bigprofitbuzz.com