NIFTY50 extended its winning streak for a sixth straight day, SENSEX ends above 81,000 mark

The Indian markets ended Thursday’s session on a positive note. However, it saw a retracement from higher levels. Despite the retracement seen, the key benchmark indices, SENSEX and NIFTY50, ended the session above their crucial psychological levels of 81,000 and 24,800, respectively.

It was a non-directional weekly expiry day for the NIFTY50. As a result, it formed the narrowest daily range in over two months, as the range was restricted to a mere 83 points. But the index extended its winning streak for the sixth straight day. Typically, a standard market run lasts about 5 to 6 sessions before it runs into some profit-taking. The current rally has stretched for six days, and it has come just ahead of U.S. Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech on Friday, which certainly indicates that market participants are in wait and watch mode.

Nifty Bank index closed at a 13-day high up by 0.59%, outperforming the frontline indices. In the broader markets, the Nifty Midcap 100 index outperformed the frontline indices with gains of 0.69%, while the Nifty Smallcap 100 index moved in tandem with the frontline indices.

Top Gainers & Losers

Index Movers

Coming to the NIFTY50 index pullers and draggers, ICICI Bank (+25.47 pts), Bharti Airtel (+14.19 pts), Grasim Industries (+5.94 pts), Infosys (+5.93 pts) and HDFC Bank (+5.37 pts) were the pullers of the day. Draggers included TCS (-11.35 pts), M&M (-7.33 pts), NTPC (-5.48 pts), Tata Motors (-5.26 pts), and ONGC (-2.91 pts).

Broader indices

Today, the broader market ended the day on a positive note. The Nifty Midcap 100 soared by +0.69%, and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index gained by +0.17%. Market breadth was strong on Thursday as the advancing stocks outnumbered the declining stocks.

Sectoral Indices

Most of the sectoral indices ended the day in green today. The top three sectoral gainers were Nifty Consumer Durables (+0.86%), Nifty Metal (+0.67%), and Nifty PSU Bank (+0.67%). The top three losers were Nifty Oil & Gas (-0.23%), Nifty Media (-0.19%), and Nifty IT (-0.16%).

Asian Markets

On Thursday, the majority of the Asian indices closed on a positive note. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained by +0.68%, the Hang Seng surged by +1.42%, and the Kospi ended marginally higher by +0.24%. Meanwhile, the Shanghai index closed down by -0.27%.

As of 3:40 PM, The Dow Jones futures were trading marginally higher by +28 points at 41,034.