Sensex Sheds 505 pts From Record High, Ends 165 pts Up; PSU Banks Top Drag; IT Stocks Gain – News18

Sensex Today: Equity benchmark indices scaled new all-time highs on Thursday tracking strength in global equities after the US consumer inflation to its lowest since March 2021. The BSE Sensex rose over 600 points to top 66,000 and the NSE Nifty50 gained 177 points to 19,566.

However, the frontline indices had pared most of their gains in noon deals. The BSE Sensex was up 200 points at 65,600, and the Nifty was seen testing the 19,400 level.

Tata Steel, HDFC Bank, TCS, M&M, SBI and Reliance led gains ont he Sensex, while Bajaj Auto, Hindalco and HDFC Life were the additional winners on the Nifty.

On the flip side, HCL Tech, Power Grid, Nestle and Dr Reddy’s were among the few frontline drags.

The broader markets also moved higher. The BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices rose up to 0.6 per cent.

Also, the IT index was shining in early trading despite a drag put by HCL Tech stock as the index gain more than a per cent

Among other stocks, Patanjali Foods slumped 5 per cent as its promoter Patanjali Ayurved launched an OFS to divest up to 9 per cent stake. The floor price for the OFS at Rs 1,000 per share is at a sharp discount.

Dr. V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said: “The ongoing global rally in stock markets will get a further mild boost from the latest US consumer inflation for June which has come at 3 percent, better than market expectation of 3.1 per cent. Importantly core inflation has dipped below 5 per cent. This is a clear indication that the disinflation process is on in the US and might persuade the Fed to pause once again in the July 26 rate decision. This is an important positive global cue.”

“In India, though the June CPI inflation has increased to 4.81 per cent, this was expected since the prices of vegetables and milk had spiked. The positive number is the May IIP at 5.2 per cent, which indicates that the growth momentum in the economy is robust. Q1 results of TCS and HCL Tech, particularly that of HCL Tech, confirm the slowdown in the IT space. Even though the cues are positive, high valuations are likely to restrain the bulls from charging ferociously,” he added.

Global Cues

Tokyo stocks opened higher Thursday, extending rallies on Wall Street after cooling US inflation data raised hopes the Federal Reserve will soon end its monetary tightening campaign.The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was up 0.42 percent, or 134.68 points, at 32,078.61 in early trade, while the broader Topix index added 0.30 percent, or 6.67 points, to 2,228.15.

US stocks ended solidly higher on Wednesday, led by a gain of more than 1% in the Nasdaq after a report showed inflation subsided further with consumer prices registering their smallest annual increase in more than two years.