Stock Market Highlights Today: Sensex slips 3 points to close at 51,934; Nifty at 15,575

Stock Market Highlights Today: The Sensex on Tuesday, June 1, 2021, ended flat taking a breather near the 52,000 mark. The domestic stocks remained almost unchanged even as the global cues were positive.

The S&P BSE Sensex slipped 2.56 points to close at 51,934.88. Earlier in the day, BSE Sensex hit a peak of 52,228.65.

The Nifty at the National Stock Exchange also fell 7.95 points or 0.05 per cent but remained above the 15,500 level to settle at 15,574.85. Earlier in the day, the 50-share index hit a fresh record peak of 15,660.75. The Nifty bank index fell 189.45 points or 0.53 per cent to close at 35,337.20.

Similar to the key benchmarks, the broader markets performance was muted today. The S&P BSE MidCap closed 0.01 per cent higher while the SmallCap index slipped 0.3 per cent.

Sellers outnumbered buyers. On the BSE, 1330 shares rose and 1812 shares fell. On the Nifty 50 index on NSE, 19 shares advanced and 31 shares declined. The top five gainers were Adani Ports (up 3.83 per cent), ONGC (up 3.43 per cent), Bajaj Finance (up 2.61 per cent), State Bank of India (up 1.93 per cent) and HDFC (up 1.06 per cent). The top five losers were JSW Steel (down 2.24 per cent), Tata Steel (down 2.22 per cent), ICICI Bank (down 1.82 per cent), Asian Paint (down 1.77 per cent) and UltraTech Cement (down 1.54 per cent).

COVID-19 Update

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide were at 17,07,24,858 with 35,50,179 deaths. India reported 18,95,520 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 3,31,895 deaths, while 2,59,47,629 patients have been discharged, data showed.

India's GDP

India's GDP contracted by 7.3 per cent in 2020-21, data showed on Monday. GDP growth in 2019-20 was 4 per cent. In Q4FY21, GDP posted expected growth of 1.6 per cent. India recorded a fiscal deficit of 9.3 per cent of GDP in 2020-21, 0.2 per cent lower than the revised estimate of 9.5 per cent of GDP, data showed. Total revenue receipts turned out to be about Rs 88,000 crore higher than estimated.

Global Economic Outlook

The global economic outlook is improving as vaccine rollouts allow businesses to resume operations while the global economy is set to grow 5.8 per cent this year, 4.4 per cent next year, OECD said, raising its estimates from 5.6 per cent, 4 per cent, respectively, in its last forecasts released in March.