Sensex crosses 55K on macro data, cues
Encouraging macro-economic data like threemonth low inflation, June industrial production up at 13.6 per cent, higher exports in July, gains in the overnight US market led Nifty-50 and Sensex to close at new all time highs despite a mixed Asian market with fresh Covid scare in several countries including Japan and China.
Gains in the European market also helped Indian market towards the close for the weekend.
Indian market was best performer among the Asian peers. The Sensex crossed 55000 for the first time ever and closed at 55437.29 up by 593.31 points or 1.08 per cent.
At close, NSE's Nifty-50 index was up 1.01 per cent or 164.7 points to new record high at 16529.1.
"Nifty was the top performer in the Asian region. Encouraging data points overnight helped as did the hopes of an early relaxations of the balance Covid curbs. Asian stock markets traded mostly lower on Friday, as traders remain concerned over the recent regulatory crackdown in China and the alarming spread of the highly contagious coronavirus variants in the region. European stocks scaled new highs on Friday on optimism over a strong earnings season and steady recovery from the pandemic-led economic downturn," said Deepak Jasani, head of retail research, HDFC Securities.
The broader market however didn't participate in Friday's rally and closed flat with a negative bias with BSE Mid-cap down by
0.06 per cent and BSE Small-cap down by 0.01 per cent.
BSE's sectoral indices for IT, Telecom, Capital Goods gained more than 1.5 per cent while other sectoral indices gained less than one per cent. BSE Healthcare and Realty indices closed in the red down by more than 0.75 per cent due to profit taking.
Both Foreign portfolio investors and domestic institutions were net buyers of equities worth Rs
819.77 crore and 149.50 crore respectively.
Record inflows in equity and hybrid mutual funds and direct retail participation are now becoming bigger factors for market moving higher though top fund managers are asking investors to be cautious.
"Enthusiastic retail participation has given momentum to the market enabling it to reach higher levels. Also, the rally has global support with the Dow and S& P 500 setting new records. The market is now driven by retail investors who account for
45 per cent of cash market transactions,” said V. K. Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist, Geojit Financial Services.