Stock market hits fresh 4-month high

The market gained more than one per cent for the second consecutive session on good recovery in automobile sales and rally in the IT stocks ahead of the onset of the earnings season for April-June 2020 quarter.

Though upside seems limited based on fundamentals, the Sensex crossed the 36,000-mark intraday and closed at new four-month high of 35,843 up 429 points. The Nifty-50 closed at 10,551.70, up 121.65 points.

The market has been gaining this week purely on domestic investors buying while the foreign portfolio investors have been net sellers on all four days of the week. FPIs were net sellers by Rs 556.72 crore on Thursday while domestic institutions were net buyers by Rs 908.64 crore.

“Non institutional participation seemed to be at a high level even as the breadth of the market kept improving. Despite the ongoing rise in global virus cases, Asian equity markets saw their biggest daily rise in over two weeks overnight. World stocks rose for a fourth straight day on Thursday as encouraging coronavirus vaccine trials kept investors’ spirits up," said Deepak Jasani, head-retail research, HDFC Securities. The BSE Auto index gained 2.83 per cent led by gains for Mahindra (6.05 per cent) and Hero MotoCorp (4.93 per cent.)