Stocks attempted to test higher levels taking the benchmark Nifty 50 index above 24,700 supported by Reliance Industries and private banking shares on Thursday.
The Market was driven by interest-sensitive sectors like financials and real estate, as investors anticipate a policy rate reduction by the central bank.
At close, Sensex was up 443.79 points or 0.55% at 81,442.04, and the Nifty was up 130.70 points or 0.53% at 24,750.90.
BSE Midcap index rose 0.4% while the Smallcap index added 0.65%.
Around 109 stocks hit their 52-week high. These included Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), SRF Ltd, APL Apollo Tubes Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Solar Industries India Ltd, Authum Investment & Infrastructure Ltd, Anupam Rasayan India Ltd, Fortis Healthcare Ltd, Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd, Intellect Design Arena Ltd, Lloyds Metals and Energy Ltd, Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd (MCX), Hitachi Energy India Ltd, and Welspun Corp Ltd.
On the other hand, 36 stocks touched 52-week lows, including Bartronics India Ltd, Axita Cotton Ltd, Lasa Supergenerics Ltd, Uma Exports Ltd, and Wendt (India) Ltd.
Cochin Shipyard surged to a fresh 52-week high, at 12.7% amid renewed optimism on defence-linked orders.
Silver prices rallied globally on safe-haven demand amid rising geopolitical tensions, lifting India’s top silver producer, Hindustan Zinc about 5%.
Further, on the losing side, retail and commercial-focused Phoenix Mills underperformed falling 1.8%.
EV-focused KPIT technologies corrected after strong outperformance in May.
Among the sectors, except PSU Bank, media, auto, all other sectoral indices ended in the green with IT, metal, pharma, realty up 0.5-1.7%.
Further, market analysts are anticipating a rate cut in the upcoming RBI MPC announcement on Friday.
On Nifty, the biggest gainers were Eternal, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Trent, Power Grid Corp, ICICI Bank, while losers were IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Axis Bank, Tata Consumer, Bajaj Finance.
On the global scale, Asian equities ended higher with Kospi and Hang Seng indices added a percent each. European shares were trading positively tracking ECB’s policy decision.