Market bulls rode the global momentum on Dalal Street on Friday, hitting new lifetime highs on the way. Bond yields in the US and Euro zone fell, with German 10-year yields set for their biggest fall this year, as investors bet on ultra-lose monetary policy to stay in place.
Data published on Thursday showed that the US consumer price index swelled the most in a month since August 2008 at 5 per cent, following a 4.2 per cent rise in April. Yet global stocks hit record peaks as investors believed the Federal Reserve would continue to keep interest rates low to maintain the recovery pace.
Moreover, the European Central Bank's statement that a policy tightening at this stage would be premature and would pose a risk to the ongoing economic recovery further lent support to the bullish sentiment on the Street.
The third factor adding to the global rally was data from the UK which showed that Britain's economic output grew by 2.3 cent on a monthly basis in April, marking the fastest growth since July last year.
Against this backdrop, the Euro STOXX 600 added 0.3 per cent, London shares gained 0.6 per cent, while Paris climbed 0.4 per cent. In Asia, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was last up 0.4 per cent.
Backed by firm global cues, the frontline S&P BSE Sensex hit an all-time-high of 52,641.5 while the broader Nifty50 index claimed 15,835.5-mark in morning deals. In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices, too, touched new peaks of 23,045 and 25,249 levels, respectively.
That said, a fag-end weakness in banking, realty, and FMCG counters dragged the markets off highs. By close, the BSE barometer was at 52,475 levels, up 174 points or 0.33 per cent while the 50-share Nifty index ended at 15,799 levels, up 62 points or 0.39 per cent.
The BSE MidCap index, on the other hand, closed 0.14 per cent up while the BSE SmallCap index ended 0.4 per cent higher.
Top news and buzzing stocks of the day:
>> Shares of information technology (IT) companies were in demand on the bourses on Friday with Wipro and Tech Mahindra hitting all-time highs. Besides, 10 other stocks including Mastek, Mindtree, Happiest Minds Technologies, Mphasis and Coforge too hit their new highs in intra-day deals.
Earlier today, the BSE IT index hit a record peak of 28,881 on the BSE before closing at 28,697 levels, up 1.5 per cent. On a weekly basis, the IT index gained over 4 per cent to record the biggest weekly gain in a month.
>> Meanwhile, shares of pharmaceutical companies continued their upward journey with the Nifty Pharma index hitting a new high for the third straight day amid strong gain in Aurobindo Pharma, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Cadila Healthcare, which rallied up to 5 per cent, each, on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Nifty Pharma index rallied 3 per cent to 14,531 on the NSE in intra-day trade today, surpassing its previous high of 14,283, touched earlier this week.
>> Shares of Bajaj Finance also rose for the second straight day on Friday, and hit a new high of Rs 6,228.60 on the BSE. The stock of the non-banking finance company has rallied 10 per cent in the past two days on hopes that the B2B and auto finance businesses will do much better with the reopening of the economy.
>> On the downside, bank stocks failed to gain even as news reports suggested that the Supreme Court has dismissed a petition filed in the apex court seeking loan moratorium amid the second wave of Covid-19.
>> On the economic front, Nomura has raised India’s gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for 2022 by 0.7 percentage points to 7.7 per cent as it believes the economic impact of the second virus wave is much less than the first one. It sees retail inflation at 5.3 per cent.
>> Lastly, Passenger vehicle wholesales in India declined by 66 per cent to around 88,000 units in May as compared to 2.62 lakh units sold in April this year as lockdowns across various states impacted dispatches to dealers, auto industry body SIAM said on Friday.
 "Market Wrap Podcast, June 11: Here's all that happened in the markets today")
