Equity benchmark Sensex stretched its winning run to the sixth straight session on Friday to reclaim the 56000-level because of robust gains in banking and financial stocks amid a largely positive trend in the overseas markets.
The 30-share BSE benchmark rose 390.28 points, or 0.70 per cent, to settle at 56072.23. During the day, it advanced 504.1 points, or 0.90 per cent, to 56186.05. The broader NSE Nifty climbed 114.20 points, or 0.69 per cent, to 16719.45. Among the Sensex constituents, UltraTech Cement, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Titan Company, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Hindustan Unilever were the lead gainers.
Infosys, NTPC, Power Grid, Wipro, and IndusInd Bank were the major laggards. The market breadth was in favour of the bulls, with 18 of the 30 Sensex stocks closing in the green. In the broader market, the BSE smallcap gauge went higher by 0.21 per cent, while the midcap index dipped by 0.17 per cent.
A total of 1,781 stocks advanced, while 1,541 declined and 147 remained unchanged. Among the BSE sectoral indices, bank jumped 1.49 per cent, followed by finance (1.36 per cent), basic materials (1.26 per cent) and realty (0.37 per cent). Power, tech, telecom and IT were among the laggards.
“Equities witnessed strong rally this week with benchmark indices such as BSE-30 and Nifty-50 posting returns of 4 per cent. The market rally was broad-based with positive returns in BSE Midcap, Smallcap, and the majority of sectoral indices. BSE Metal, BSE IT and BSE Capital Goods indices moved higher by more than 5 per cent this week. “Equity markets seem to have received support from the hope of peaking inflation amid a decline in commodity prices and the slowdown in FII selling. In fact, FIIs have been buyers for some days so far in July,” Shrikant Chouhan, head of equity research (retail) at Kotak Securities, said.
In the near term, markets will be tracking the upcoming Fed Reserve meeting, currency movement, and quarterly results, he added. The rupee, meanwhile slipped, 5 paise to 79.90 against the dollar. In Asia, markets in Tokyo and Hong Kong settled higher, while Seoul and Shanghai ended lower.
