December 11, 2023 / 07:20 AM IST
Market on Friday:
The equity benchmarks resumed their upward trend on December 8 after a day’s pause to hit new highs as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) left the key interest rate unchanged for the fifth time in a row.
The Nifty went past the 21,000 mark for the first time when it hit 21,006.10 and the Sensex touched a new high of 69,893.80 in the morning session.
The Sensex closed 303.91 points, or 0.44 percent, higher at 69,825.60, and the Nifty was, 68.20 points, or 0.33 percent, at 20,969.40.
The market recorded the biggest weekly gain since July 2022, as both the benchmarks gained 3.5 percent each.
The Reserve Bank of India kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5 percent, citing a potential resurgence in inflation and signalling that price stability remained its primary objective.
The central bank raised its GDP growth forecast for 2023-24 by a huge 50 basis points to 7 percent following the big upside surprise in the July-September data.
HCL Technologies, JSW Steel, LTIMindtree, Apollo Hospitals and Infosys were among the top gainers on the Nifty, while losers were Adani Enterprises, ITC, Adani Ports, Hero MotoCorp and Britannia Industries.
On the sectoral front, FMCG, oil & gas and power indices were down a percent each, healthcare and auto were down 0.5 percent each. Bank, information technology, bank and realty were up 0.5-1 percent.
The BSE midcap index ended marginally lower and the smallcap index closed 0.4 percent down.
Nifty Bank index also touched its fresh record high of 47,303.65, before settling at 47,262, with a percent gain.
