Sensex jumps more than 400 points; IRCTC surges 14 per cent, Laurus Labs gains 4 per cent, SpiceJet zooms 10 per cent

On Friday, the domestic benchmark indices touched record highs as Sensex closed at 45,079.55 levels, up by 446.90 points or 1 per cent while Nifty gained by 124.65 points or 0.95 per cent to settle at 13,258.55 levels.

The stocks rallied during today’s trading session after RBI left the key rates unchanged and also maintained its accommodative stance. Hence, gains in banking & financial stocks on Friday boosted the overall positive momentum in the markets.

Airline stocks surged during Friday’s session as the government permitted airline companies to sell seats up to 80 per cent of their pre-COVID capacity on domestic flights, which is up from the existing 70 per cent. The shares of InterGlobe Aviation, the holding company of IndiGo gained by 5.79 per cent while SpiceJet rose by 9.77 per cent.

On the global front, Asian indices such as Shanghai index, Hang Seng, and KOSPI gained by 0.071 per cent, 0.40 per cent and 1.31 per cent, respectively. In the European markets, FTSE 100, DAX, and CAC 40 were trading higher by 0.85 per cent, 0.02 per cent, and 0.32 per cent, respectively.

On Friday, gold prices traded slightly higher on the back of the weakening dollar and also on the hopes of the US stimulus package.

Sensex gainers included ICICI Bank that went up by 4.20 per cent, UltraTech Cement rose by 4.10 per cent, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries jumped 3.80 per cent, Bharti Airtel gained by 2.91 per cent, HUL increased by 2.85 per cent, SBI strengthened by 2.77 per cent, etc.

Sensex losers consisted of RIL that went down by 0.86 per cent, Bajaj Finserv fell by 0.74 per cent, HCL Technologies decreased by 0.34 per cent, HDFC weakened by 0.17 per cent, NTPC decreased by 0.10 per cent, etc.

Amongst sectoral indices on BSE, Bankex was the biggest gainer, up by 2.14 per cent while the Energy index was the biggest loser, down by 0.60 per cent. BSE Metal index and BSE Telecom index gained by 1.22 per cent and 1.88 per cent, respectively. BSE Small-Cap index rose by 0.42 per cent while BSE Mid-Cap index gained by 0.44 per cent.