Equity Benchmarks ended with decent gains; Sensex jumps 222 points & Nifty 50 ends above 15,860 mark

Domestic equity benchmarks ended with decent gains on Tuesday, June 15, 2021. All across-the-board buying lifted the benchmarks to new lifetime highs in the early morning deals today, where Sensex touched 52,869.51 levels while Nifty 50 touched the high of 15,901.60.

By the end of the trading hours, the S&P BSE Sensex rose 221.52 points or 0.42 per cent to close at 52,773.05. The Nifty 50 index added 57.40 points or 0.36 per cent to end at 15,869.25. The Nifty bank index gained 297.15 points or 0.85 per cent to settle higher at 35,247.75.

In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index settled 0.60 per cent higher amid gains in GMR Infra (up 14.39 per cent), Future Retail (up 9.99 per cent), Whirlpool (up 7.22 per cent), Zee Entertainment (up 5.66 per cent), Info Edge (up 4.66 per cent), Oil India (up 4.02 per cent) and Crisil (up 3.97 per cent). The BSE SmallCap index too gained 0.44 per cent propelled by gains in Sagar Cement (up 20 per cent), Srei Infra (up 19.90 per cent), Reliance Industrial Infrastructure (up 19.53 per cent), Action Construction Equipment (up 17.02 per cent), Sanghvi Movers (up 13.82 per cent), Insecticides (up 13.73 per cent), Future Consumer (up 13.17 per cent) and KEI Industries (up 10.72 per cent).

Buyers outpaced sellers. On the BSE, 1948 shares rose and 1277 shares fell. On the Nifty 50 index, 25 shares advanced and 25 shares declined. The top five shares on the Nifty 50 index were Asian Paints (up 2.88 per cent), HDFC Life (up 1.78 per cent), Axis Bank (up 1.66 per cent), ICICI Bank (up 1.46 per cent) and Hindustan Unilever (up 1.24 per cent). The top five losers were Divi's Laboratories (down 1.57 per cent), Adani Ports (down 1.56 per cent), Coal India (down 1.41 per cent), Tata Motors (down 1.11 per cent) and Bajaj Finserv (down 1.06 per cent).

COVID-19 Update

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 17,62,73,244 with 38,12,377 deaths. India reported 9,13,378 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 3,77,031 deaths while 2,82,80,472 patients have been discharged, data showed.

India's Economy

Consumer price index-based inflation for the month of May 2021 came in at 6.30 per cent, higher than April 2021's 4.23 per cent. The higher inflation month-on-month was primarily on the back of a substantial hardening of food prices.

Meanwhile, as per Moody's Investors Service, India's and Brazil's Q1 2021 real GDP data has shown a strong rebound in both economies following a contraction last year of 4.4 per cent in Brazil and 7.1 per cent in India. Brazil's first-quarter GDP expanded 1.2 per cent from the previous quarter and 2.3 per cent from the first quarter of 2020.

India's first-quarter GDP rose 1.5 per cent quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. Therefore, in the first quarter of this year, Brazil's GDP reached while India's GDP surpassed their pre-COVID-19 fourth-quarter 2019 levels, the organisation highlighted in its latest credit outlook report.

Fed's Policy Meeting

The Fed's two-day policy meeting will likely dominate investor behaviour this week. The central bank is not expected to take any action.