Sensex soars 448 pts to chart new record high on expiry day, Nifty tops 9,500

Bulls staged a smart bounce back on the final day of May F&O expiry, boosted by short covering by investors in frontline banking, IT and other large-cap stocks that propelled Sensex to a fresh intra-day high of 30,793.43, up 492 points. Recovery in other Asian and European markets, besides US Fed signalling a more cautious approach to future rate hikes also enthused sentiment to a greater extent. On Thursday, the 30-share benchmark Sensex raced to close at a fresh life high of 30,750 zooming 448 points, its biggest single-day gain in over two months. [caption id=“attachment_2411792” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] Today’s rally was biggest since 14 March when it surged 496.40 points. The gauge had lost 269.33 points in the previous two sessions. The broader Nifty again got past the key 9,500-mark. The 50-share NSE Nifty reclaimed the key 9,500 mark to hit the session’s high of 9,523.30 before ending at 9,509.75, up by 149.20 points, or 1.59 percent. May futures and options expiry gave buying a push. “Nifty made a new all-time high at 9532 in the month but came down as we saw profit booking at these levels, this also fueled by cross boarder tension with neighbor country. Bank Nifty also followed the similar trend making a new high of 22978 from where we saw it cooling off to end on a flat note. IT was the best outperforming sector as it gained around 5% during the month unlike previous month where it underperform the broader market. Auto and FMCG were other sectors that gained during the month; Pharma and media were the worst performing sectors that closed around 6%, said S Hariharan, Head - Sales Trading, Emkay Global Financial Services Ltd. “We are seeing a higher roll over cost across stocks with Nifty roll cost of 52-55bps, highest in last 12 months (this is considering 46 bps of dividend). A good rollover percentage in AUTO names and higher roll cost suggest the sector to outperform next month, while lower roll cost in PSU banks suggest the sector to underperform next month, said Hariharan. The 30-share Sensex scaled an all-time high of 30,793.43 (intra-day), breaking its previous record of 30,712.35, recorded on 19 May. The gauge galloped by 448.39 points, or 1.48 percent, to close at new peak of 30,750.03, surpassing its previous record closing of 30,658.77, reached on May 17. The rupee strengthening for the second day against the American currency bolstered sentiment. It appreciated by 25 paise to trade at 64.48 (intra-day) today. According to market observers, short-covering triggered on account of May futures and options (F&O) contracts expiry also led the key indices to provisionally close with gains of around 1.5 percent each, IANS report said. Among the major gainers, L&T surged nearly 5 percent, ICICI Bank rose 3.5 percent, HDFC Bank advanced 3 percent, Infosys gained nearly 3 pecent and Gail was up 2.9 percent. Other key performers like TCS, State Bank of India, Wipro, Maruti, Bajaj Auto, Asian Paints and HeroMoto Corp were up over 1-2 percent each. With PTI inputs