Nifty hits record high, Sensex rises over 300 pts

The benchmark indices hit fresh intraday high in mid morning trade. The Nifty hit a record high of 15,940.15. Shares of mid-cap IT firms were in demand as these companies announce Q1 earnings.

At 11:27 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 315.2 points or 0.60% to 53,219.25. The Nifty 50 index added 83.25 points or 0.53% to 15,937.20.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index gained 0.22% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.46%.

The market breadth was strong. On the BSE, 1762 shares rose and 1138 shares fell. A total of 121 shares were unchanged.

COVID-19 Update:

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 187,757,447 with 4,048,243 global deaths.

India reported 432,041 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 411,989 deaths, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty IT index rose 1.12% to 29,668.55. The index has added 4.32% in two sessions.

HCL Tech (up 3.84%), Larsen & Toubro Infotech (up 3.12%), Tech Mahindra (up 2.34%), Wipro (up 2.11%), MindTree (up 0.92%), Infosys (up 0.61%), Mphasis (up 0.39%) and Oracle Financial Services Software (up 0.18%) advanced.

Coforge (down 0.32%) and TCS (down 0.11%) declined.

Among the mid-cap IT stocks, L&T Technology Services (up 15.05%), Happiest Minds Technologies (up 7.62%), Zensar Technologies (up 6.15%), Firstsource Solutions (up 3.99%), Tata Elxsi (up 2.69%), Persistent Systems (up 2.34%) and NIIT (up 2.16%) edged higher.

Global Markets:

Most Asian stocks rose on Thursday after China's GDP rose 7.9% year-on-year in the second quarter, official data showed Thursday. Meanwhile, the country's retail sales in June jumped 12.1% from a year earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Chinese industrial output rose 8.3% year-on-year in June.

China's central bank partially rolled over maturing medium-term loans on Thursday, the same day when a cut in the banks' reserve requirements takes effect.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement it was keeping the rate on 100 billion yuan ($15.46 billion) worth of one-year medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans to some financial institutions steady at 2.95% from previous operations.

US stocks closed flat on Wednesday after U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soothed investor angst by saying a recent inflation spike will fade, helping lift the S&P 500 to a fresh intraday record.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank will maintain its easy monetary policies. Powell said in his semiannual testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services Wednesday that the central bank can wait before it starts to ease its bond purchases despite surging inflation readings. The Fed chair said he still expects inflation to moderate.

"At our June meeting, the Committee discussed the economy's progress toward our goals since we adopted our asset purchase guidance last December. While reaching the standard of 'substantial further progress' is still a ways off, participants expect that progress will continue," Powell said.

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