Sensex sheds major gains, rupee continues to weaken (Lead)

Mumbai, April 8 : As the resurgent Covid cases raise concerns of impact on economic recovery, key Indian equity indices shed their major initial gains to end marginally higher on Thursday.

Noting that equity markets gained for the third day in a row, Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said that last hour selling in banking and financials capped the gains.

"Global markets were mixed after Federal Reserves commentary reinforced that the central bank plans to maintain its policy support despite massive fiscal spending from the recent government stimulus package," he said.The BSE Sense closed at 49,746.21, higher by 84.45 points, or 0.17 per cent, from its previous close of 49,661.76.It had opened at 49,885.26 and touched an intra-day high of 50,118.08 and a low of 49,581.61 points.The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange closed at 14,873.80, higher by 54.75 points, or 0.37 per cent, from its previous close.Analysts were of the view that going ahead, Indian markets are likely to track global cues along with the earnings season which would kick start from next week and would keep markets volatile.

"Lot of stock specific action is likely to be witnessed due to this.We expect Q4 to be another strong quarter, aided by a deflated base of 4QFY20 and healthy demand recovery for the large part of 4QFY21 - as attested by high-frequency indicators.

Performance is expected to be healthy despite headwinds of commodity cost inflation in various sectors," Khemka said.However, concerns over the fast spreading second wave of Covid in India continues to remain.

Further, rupee also continued to depreciate on Thursday amid the rising concerns over the economic recovery.It settled at 74.60 per dollar, against the previous closed of 74.55 per greenback.