Sensex rises 145 points to end at 2016 high; midcaps in limelight

Mumbai: The domestic bourses witnessed an encouraging weekly gain as the benchmark indices on Friday gained for the fifth straight session. BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty recorded their best weekly gain in five sessions to end the week at fresh 2016 closing high. The S&P BSE Sensex rose 145.19 points to close at 27,144.91 and Nifty50 surged 41points to end at 8,328 after topping 8,350 in intra-day trade.

Friday, being the first day of the July F&O series, marked a big-bang opening for the derivatives segment.

Friday, being the first day of the July F&O series, marked a big-bang opening for the derivatives segment. Mostly the buoyancy in FMCG, PSU bank and pharma stocks led the rally on the bourses. Sensex closed at its highest level since October 2015, while Nifty closed at 10-month high.

The sustained foreign institutional investors (FII) buying helped the indices move up, while encouraging manufacturing data and progress of the monsoon boosted sentiment.

In the broader market, both the BSE midcap and smallcap indices were up 1.2 percent and 0.7 percent respectively as each performed better than the front-liners. The industrial manufacturing activity rose in June to a three-month high as new orders were forthcoming from near flat in the first two months of the current financial year. The widely-tracked Nikkei Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 51.7 points in June from 50.7 in the previous month, according to the data released on Friday.

Meanwhile, the rupee on Friday rose for the third day in a row. The Indian currency climbed by nine paise to 67.43 against the US dollar in early trade on sustained selling of the American currency by banks and exporters. Dealers said strong foreign fund inflows and a higher opening of the domestic equity market gave the local unit more strength. The rupee had firmed up 16 paise to close at 67.52 Thursday.

Source: PTI