Sensex rallies by almost 300 points; Britannia inches up 6 per cent – hits record high

The bulls are maintaining their firm grip on the markets for the benchmark indices and today's trading session – Nifty rose by 0.83 per cent or 82.45 points to close at 10,061.55 level while Sensex registered gains by 0.84 per cent or 284.01 points to reach the level of 34,109.54.

The Nikkei/IHS Markit Services Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 12.6 in May from April's all-time low of 5.4, owing to the severe contraction in the service industry in May as COVID-19 brought the business operations to a halt. However, following the lead of global indices, investors overlooked the prevailing social unrest in the US and instead, have focused on easing of lockdown restrictions and economic recovery as Sensex breached the 34,000 mark and closed higher at 34,109.54 level while Nifty reclaimed the level of 10,000 which is a first-time occurrence since March 13, 2020. Shares of Britannia Industries inched up 6 per cent on intraday basis as the company reported a 26.1 per cent YoY growth in consolidated net profit for Q4FY20.

Sensex gainers comprise stocks such as M&M rallying by 4.82 per cent, Kotak Mahindra Bank surging by 3.31 per cent, Bajaj Finance gaining by 2.83 per cent, SBI increasing by 2.70 per cent, Nestle India rising by 2.38 per cent, ICICI Bank increasing by 2.34 per cent, etc.

Sensex losers include NTPC declining by 2.12 per cent, Bharti Airtel which fell by 1.13 per cent, Maruti Suzuki declining by 1.13 per cent, Hero MotoCorp which fell by 0.95 per cent, etc.

Of the BSE sectoral indices, Realty was the biggest gainer, up by 3.07 per cent while Telecom was the biggest laggard, down by 0.95 per cent. Broader indices such as small-cap index and mid-cap index gained by 1.24 per cent and 0.31 per cent respectively.