Sensex rises 950 points as BJP-led NDA sweeps exit polls, rupee jumps against US dollar
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At 09:18 hrs IST, the Sensex is up 811 points or 2.14% at 38741.77, while Nifty is up 242.10 points or 2.12% at 11649.30. About 952 shares have advanced, 100 shares declined, and 34 shares are unchanged.
Domestic stock markets opened higher on Monday after exit polls of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections projected BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to win a comfortable majority.
At 10:30 AM, the S&P BSE Sensex had gained a whopping 972.43 points, or 2.55 per cent, to trade at 38,903.31 levels, with Maruti, State Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, ICICI Bank, and Reliance Industries among the top gainers. The broader Nifty50, had gained 285.05 points, or 2.49 per cent, to trade at 11,691.
The exit polls are predicting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA is coming back to power at the Centre with close to 300 seats.
The Indian rupee also gained in the early trade on Monday. It opened higher by 73 paise at 69.49 per dollar on Monday versus previous close 70.22.
Wall Street ended lower on Friday as continuing trade tensions pulled industrial and tech shares down, and the Dow capped a fourth straight week of losses in its longest weekly losing streak in three years.
Exit polls have been used for years to provide the pulse of India's political climate once voting is over. They try to give a sense of how voters may have exercised their franchise and which political party or alliance of parties stand the best chance of forming the next government.