D-St benchmarks settle at new peaks! Sensex rises 204 points; Nifty tops 23,350

The market capitalisation of all listed companies on BSE declined by Rs 2.39 lakh crore to Rs 431.7 lakh crore. The market breadth was skewed in the favour of the bulls. About 2,350 stocks gained, 1,535 declined, and 99 remained unchanged on the BSE.

Earlier, the indices opened at record highs today, with the Sensex hitting 77,145.46 and 50 touching 23,481.05, breaching the 23,400 mark, following overnight US and early Asian markets.

U.S. consumer prices were unexpectedly unchanged in May, while core prices grew at their slowest annual pace in over three years, lifting bets of a rate cut in September to 56.7% from 46.8% previously, per the CMEGroup's FedWatch tool.

That sparked a rally in U.S. and Asia stocks despite Fed Chair Jerome Powell saying inflation was still too high and the central bank's "dot plot" signalling just one rate cut this year, compared with three cuts projected in March.

Nifty IT index stocks, which rely heavily on U.S. clients for revenue, jumped up to 2%.

Nifty Financials index, more sensitive to domestic interest rates, climbed 0.3% after data showed India's retail inflation eased slightly in May.

Among individual stocks, Paytm closed 6.4% higher after saying its ticket-booking services for travel and entertainment would be available on Samsung Wallet in India.

Sobha shares also closed 5% higher following the board's approval of a Rs 2,000 crore rights issue.

Experts View

"The domestic equity benchmark traded with a modest gain, with domestic CPI data indicating that inflation is on a slow track of decline. A similar trend is reported in the US CPI, which brought down the market expectation from 2 rate cuts in CY24 to 1, which is having a mixed effect on the global markets. In the domestic broader market, the realty and consumer durables sectors took the lead owing to government initiatives to revive the affordable housing segment," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.

Aditya Gaggar, Director of Progressive Shares, said, "Higher levels played their part well as once again, the Index has formed a Bearish candle at record levels, and on the hourly timeframe, a bearish divergence was spotted which suggests the loss of its positive momentum. The levels of 23,480 and 23,300 will be considered as resistance and support respectively."

Global Markets

World stocks retreated from record highs on Thursday, as the feel-good factor of slowing U.S. inflation and somewhat comforting Fed signals made way for a fresh bout of politics- and tariffs-induced weakness in Europe.

Europe's continent-wide STOXX 600 was driven 0.4% lower by a 1.5% slump in its car makers as China signalled it would respond to the EU's move to slap tariffs of up to 38.1% on China-made electric vehicles.

MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 0.6% though as Taiwan's tech-heavy stock market surged 1.8% to a new high buoyed by the U.S. S&P 500 and Nasdaq closing at all-time peaks on Wednesday.

Crude Oil

Oil prices slipped on Thursday as investors digested that the U.S. Federal Reserve had likely pushed back an interest rate cut to December and as U.S. crude and fuel stocks rose.

Brent crude futures was down 43 cents, or 0.5%, to $82.17 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) U.S. crude futures fell 46 cents, or 0.6%, to $78.04. Both benchmarks had gained nearly 1% in the previous session.

Rupee Ends Flat

The Indian rupee closed nearly unchanged on Thursday as pressure due to dollar demand from local corporates was blunted by state-run banks' dollar offers, likely on behalf of the Reserve Bank of India, traders said.

The rupee ended at 83.5425 against the U.S. dollar, almost unchanged from its previous close at 83.5450. The currency remained in a tight band between 83.5225 and 83.55 during the session.

(With inputs from agencies)

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