Sensex, Nifty Close At New Highs; IT Stocks Outperform

Investors on Friday, August 13 cheered the inflation data for the month of July which will further comfort the RBI to keep the interest rates lower for a longer period. Both Sensex and Nifty scaled new peaks in the intraday trade, Sensex hit an all-time high of 55,487.79, and Nifty at 16,543.60.

Industrial output data has shown signs of recovery in the manufacturing sector adding to more buying in the market, experts feel. "Manufacturing data is still at the pre-covid levels but if India is able to avoid the third wave, we have seen the markets recover at a fast pace, soon we will see these data surpassing pre-covid levels," said a market expert.

At close, the BSE Sensex was at 55,437.29, up 593.31 points, and Nifty was at 16,529.10, up 164.70 points. Buying in heavyweight stocks like Reliance, HDFC Bank, TCS, and Bharti Airtel led the benchmark indices to close up one per cent each. Shares of RIL, HDFC Bank jumped one per cent each, while those of TCS and Bharti Airtel climbed over three and two per cent, respectively.

However, on the flipside, the broader markets ended flat in the red as some profit booking took over the space, said experts. Shares of VI, Motilal Oswal, Page Industries, and Natco Pharma were the top losers in the Midcap space, declining between 2-4 per cent each.

Among the sectors, the IT sector clearly outperformed as the Nifty IT index added over a per cent led by shares of TCS(+3.33 per cent), HCL Tech(+2.09 per cent), and Wipro(1.59 per cent). PSU Banks, FMCG, and Metals were other gainers, while the Auto and Pharma sector ended in the red.

In the overall market breadth on Friday, nearly 1412 shares advanced, 1583 shares declined, and 81 shares were unchanged.

(PTI)