Bulls lift indices to new closing peak; Sensex up 458 pts; pharma stks gain

Among the headline indices, the S&P BSE Sensex hit a fresh record high of 50,526 in the intra-day trade today, supported by buying in HDFC, HDFC Bank, Infosys, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Bharti Airtel, and Reliance Industries. The BSE barometer, however, witnessed mild profit-booking at higher levels but managed to end the day at fresh closing peak of 50,256 levels, up 458 points or 0.92 per cent.

IndusInd Bank, up 7.3 per cent, settled the day as top gainer on the index after global brokerage Morgan Stanley raised its target price on the stock to Rs 1,225 apiece.In their bull-case scenario, the stock price is seen at Rs 2,030.

That apart, PowerGrid, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Dr Reddy's Labs, NTPC, and Tech Mahindra were the top gainers on the index. On the downside, losses in UltraTech Cement, Maruti Suzuki, ITC, and Kotak Mahindra Bank capped gains.

The broader Nifty50 index, on the other hand, settled the day at new closing high of 14,790, adding 142 points or 0.97 per cent. The index hit a fresh record peak of 14,869 earlier today. A total of 10 stocks declined on the index today including Shree Cement, UltraTech Cement, UPL, Maruti Suzuki, Grasim, and Asian Paints.

The broader markets, meanwhile, outran their benchmark peers after three straight days of underperformance. The S&P BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices ended 1.4 per cent and 1.5 per cent higher, respectively.  

The trend among sectoral indices was largely positive. The Nifty Pharma index edged up 3 per cent, followed by gains in the Nifty PSB index (up 2.3 per cent), and the Nifty Private Bank index (up 2 per cent). On the downside, the Nifty Realty index eased 0.5 per cent.

Global markets

Asian shares and US stock futures rose on Wednesday as governments around the world looked poised to boost spending to help economies recover from the coronavirus and vaccine roll-out programmes accelerated.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.58 per cent, Australian stocks gained 0.92 per cent, while shares in China fell 0.03 per cent. Japan's Nikkei added 0.9 per cent. 

In Europe, shares rose for the third session on Wednesday amid healthy corporate earnings. Germany's DAX index gained 0.8 per cent, while the STOXX 600 index rose 0.9 per cent.

(With inputs from Reuters)