Mumbai, Aug 11: Benchmark indices ended up on Thursday on improved sentiments of investors after US inflation data for July came below estimates, raising hopes that the US Fed will be slow on rate hikes. At close, Sensex ended up 515.31 points or 0.88 per cent at 59,332.60, while Nifty ended 124.25 points or 0.71 percent higher at 17,659.00.
On the BSE, 1,843 shares advanced, 1,548 declined and 144 remained unchanged. Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, HDFC, Tech Mahindra, and TCS were the top gainers on the BSE on Thursday. The BSE smallCap rose 0.83 per cent, the midcap was up 0.52 percent, while large-cap rose 0.75 percent.
“Investors cheered the US inflation data for July, which came in below the estimate and raised hopes that the Federal Reserve may not be that aggressive in hiking interest rates in its next meeting. Hence, the optimism spread across Asian markets, including India where investors lapped up banking, IT, and realty stocks.
“Traders have also been drawing comfort from the falling crude oil prices and FII inflows into the local shares in the last few sessions,” said Shrikant Chouhan, Head of Equity Research (Retail), Kotak Securities Ltd. US CPI rose by 8.5 percent vs expectations of 8.7 percent during the year to July versus a 9.1 per cent annual expansion in June. More relevantly, the core reading held steady at 5.9 per cent, better than the uptick towards 6.1 percent anticipated. Money market traders immediately priced in a higher probability for a 50-basis point hike at the Federal Reserve’s next rate revision meeting on September 21.
