D-Street party continues: Sensex, Nifty scale fresh all-time highs

Equity benchmark indices scaled fresh all-time closing highs on Friday, propelled by Intense buying in index heavyweights Infosys, HDFC twins, Reliance Industries and TCS amid healthy macroeconomic indicators.

Besides, foreign fund inflows and a firm trend in the global markets further bolstered sentiment, traders said.

Rallying for the third straight day, the 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 803.14 points or 1.26 per cent to settle at its lifetime closing high of 64,718.56. During the day, it zoomed 853.16 points or 1.33 per cent to reach its record intra-day peak of 64,768.58. The NSE Nifty climbed 216.95 points or 1.14 per cent to end at a record high of 19,189.05. During the day, it rallied 229.6 points or 1.21 per cent to hit its all-time intra-day peak of 19,201.70.

On a weekly basis, the BSE benchmark jumped 1,739.19 points or 2.76 per cent this week, and the Nifty climbed 523.55 points or 2.80 per cent.

“Investors remain positive about the long-term prospects of the domestic market due to healthy macroeconomic indicators while global cues are also improving as concerns over a recession in the US eases.

“The US economy showed much stronger-than-expected growth in the first quarter than previously thought, according to a big upward revision Thursday from the Commerce Department,” said Devarsh Vakil, Deputy Head of Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

Mahindra & Mahindra was the best performer in the Sensex pack, rising over 4 per cent, followed by IndusInd Bank, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Maruti, Larsen & Toubro, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Power Grid, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Bajaj Finance and Reliance Industries.

“Domestic equities continued their northbound journey after a days break, supported by positive global data, healthy FII buying and strong progress in monsoon,” Siddhartha Khemka, Head – Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said.

In the broader market, the BSE midcap gauge climbed 0.67 per cent and smallcap index advanced 0.51 per cent.

Among the indices, IT jumped 2.34 per cent, teck rallied 2.13 per cent, auto (1.82 per cent), capital goods (1.73 per cent), industrials (1.31 per cent), financial services (0.94 per cent, consumer discretionary (0.85 per cent) and energy (0.76 per cent).

Commodities emerged as the only laggard.

In Asian markets, Seoul and Shanghai ended in the green, while Tokyo and Hong Kong settled lower.

Equity markets in Europe were trading with gains. The US markets ended largely with gains in the overnight trade on Thursday.

“The lack of global support had restrained the Indian indices from pursuing their record highs earlier, despite the presence of a resilient domestic macroeconomic background. “With positive surprises assisting buoyancy in the global market and the advance of the southwest monsoon, the domestic market succeeded in marching to new highs with renewed strength. Global investor sentiments were uplifted by a favourable revision in Q1 GDP, a fall in jobless claims, and the positive outcome of the Feds US bank stress test,” said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.61 per cent to USD 74.79 a barrel.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought equities worth Rs 12,350 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.

Markets were closed on Thursday on account of Eid al-Adha also known as Bakrid.

“Next week the market will take cues from economic data to be released locally as well as globally. Investors would also watch out for FOMC minutes to get insights into the US Central Banks future course of direction. The auto sector is expected to be in the limelight, as companies would release monthly sales data,” Khemka said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)