The key equity benchmarks, Sensex and Nifty on Friday settled at record highs for the second straight trading session on the back of all-round buying. IT, Auto, and Capital Goods shares in particular logged smart gains. The S&P BSE Sensex, which started the day with a 100-odd point gap-up, went on to extend gains as the day progressed. The Sensex scaled a high of 64,768.58 towards the fag end of the trading session, and finally ended with a solid gain of 803 points at 64,719.
On the other hand, the NSE Nifty 50 crossed the 19,200-level and registered its highest at 19,201.7. Eventually it closed 217 points stronger at 19,189.
On the 30-share Sensex platform, barring ICICI Bank and NTPC, all settled in the green. M&M, Infosys, IndusInd Bank, Sun Pharma, TCS, Maruti were among the lead gainers.
In the broader markets, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices gained 0.5 per cent each.
Sectorally, all the indices ended in the green, with IT index up 2.5 per cent and PSU Bank index rose 2 per cent. Auto and capital goods indices also jumped 2 per cent each.
On Thursday, the National Stock Exchange and BSE remained closed on account of Bakri Eid (June 29). In the previous session on Wednesday, the Sensex ended with a gain of 499 points at 63,915, while the NSE Nifty 50 closed with a gain of 155 points at 18,972.
"The lack of global support had restrained the Indian indices from pursuing their record highs earlier, despite the presence of a resilient domestic macroeconomic background. With positive surprises assisting buoyancy in the global market and the advance of the southwest monsoon, the domestic market succeeded in marching to new highs with renewed strength. Global investor sentiments were uplifted by a favourable revision in Q1 GDP, a fall in jobless claims, and the positive outcome of the Fed’s US bank stress test," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
In Asian markets, Seoul, and Shanghai ended in the green while Tokyo and Hong Kong settled lower. Equity markets in Europe were trading with gains. The US markets ended largely with gains in the overnight trade on Thursday.
Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.61 per cent to $74.79 a barrel.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought equities worth Rs 12,350 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.
Meanwhile, the rupee closed flat at 82.03 (provisional) against the US dollar in a restricted trade on Friday amid a rally in the domestic equities and firm crude oil prices. While FII inflows into equities supported the rupee, a firm US dollar in global markets and gains in crude oil prices capped its gains, analysts said.
The rupee opened weak at 82.05 at the interbank foreign exchange market due to firm crude oil prices in the Asian trade. It moved in a tight range of 82.00 to 82.07 in the day trade. The local unit settled flat at 82.03 (provisional) against the US dollar. The rupee closed at the same level on Wednesday.