Equity Markets Jump For 2nd Day; Sensex Soars 629 Points

Equity benchmark indices extended their previous day's surge on May 26, with the Sensex soaring 1%, amid buying in index major Reliance Industries, fresh foreign fund inflows and positive trends prevailing in global markets.

The 30-share BSE Sensex witnessed a surge of 629.07 points or 1.02% to close at 62,501.69. Earlier in the day, Sensex soared 657.21 points or 1.06% to 62,529.83. Meanwhile, NSE Nifty soared 178.20 points or 0.97% to close at 18,499.35.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd said, "Indian equities moved higher supported by positive handover from the US markets and strong upmove in Index heavyweights. Nifty opened higher and strengthen throughout the session to close with hefty gains of 185 points (+1%) at 18506. India VIX declined by 4% at 11.9 levels. Also Consistent FIIs buying supporting the overall positivity."

Shares of Reliance Industries rallied 2.79% from Sensex pack. Meanwhile, shares of Sun Pharma, HCL Technologies, Wipro, Hindustan Unilever, Tech Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, Tata Steel and Titan emerged as other leading gainers in the day.

Shares of ONGC and Grasim witnessed a decline of nearly 1% on their quarterly result announcement day. Grasim Industries Ltd on Friday announced a steep 89% dip in its standalone net profit at Rs 93.51 crore for the March quarter.

"All sectors ended in green with IT, FMCG, PSU Bank and Metals being top gainers up 1% each. After consolidating for the last few days, Nifty has managed to surpass the resistance of 18450 zones. We expect this momentum to continue and Nifty to touch its previous lifetime high in the coming weeks," added Siddhartha Khemka.

Dr Joseph Thomas, Head of Research, Emkay Wealth Management said, "The markets remained quite bullish , more or less insulated from developments elsewhere. The uptick seen during the week was across market caps and sectors. The prolonged negotiations in the US on the budget ceiling is being looked at with some amount of consternation as the consequences may be devastating if an agreement is not reached. But the probability of an agreement being hammered out is very high. Other significant influences on the market would be the economic numbers as well as speculations on the intensity of the economic slide that is likely to happen in the coming quarters."

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo and Shanghai ended in the green. Equity markets in Europe were trading lower. The US market ended mostly with gains on Thursday, according to a PTI report.