Bulls reign on 1st day of 2021; Sensex ends 118 points up at 47,869; PSBs gain
Amid thin-trading in Asia, Indian equities clinched fresh record highs in the intra-day session on Friday on sustained bullish momentum in the markets. Frontline S&P BSE Sensex nearly kissed the 48,000-mark when it hit a fresh lifetime high of 47,980 levels. Its NSE counterpart, Nifty50, on the other hand touched a new peak of 14,050.
The indices, however, climbed-off record highs and settled the day around 0.2 per cent higher. The Sensex index ended the day at 47,869 levels, up 118 points or 0.25 per cent. ITC (up 2.3 per cent), TCS, M&M, and State Bank of India (SBI) were the top index gainers, while ICICI Bank (down 1.3 per cent), HDFC Bank, and Titan were the top drags on the index.
The broader Nifty50 closed the day at fresh closing high, above the 14,000-mark, at 14,018.5 levels, up 37 points or 0.26 per cent.
Among individual stocks, shares of Antony Waste Handling Cell debuted at the bourses at Rs 430 apiece, commanding a 36 per cent premium against the issue price of Rs 315. At close, the stock erased gains and settled 5 per cent lower than the listing price, at Rs 408 per share. It was, however, still up around 30 per cent compared to the issue price.
Besides, auto stocks remained in focus on Friday as firms reported their December sales. Maruti Suzuki ended the day 0.5 per cent higher after it reported a 20 per cent YoY rise in December sales. Meanwhile, M&M’s total sales slipped 10 per cent; Escorts total sales grew 88 per cent YoY; and Ashok Leyland’s total sales improved by 14 per cent on a yearly basis. All the stocks settled higher in the range of 2.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent.
Sectorally, largely all the NSE indices ended the day in the green barring Nifty Bank, Nifty Private Bank, and Nifty Financial Services indices. On the upside, Nifty PSB index ended over 3 per cent higher.
In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap and S&P BSE SmallCap index ended the day 1.24 per cent and 0.9 per cent higher, respectively.