Indian stock indices hit fresh highs

NEW DELHI: Indian stock indices touched fresh highs on Friday, largely due to strong overnight cues from US markets and consistent fund inflows by foreign portfolio investors.

On Thursday too, they tasted fresh highs.

Sensex and Nifty hit their fresh all-time highs of 67,774.46 and 20,173.15 points, respectively, at the opening bell.

At the time of filing this report, Sensex was at 67,726.82 points, up 0.31 per cent, and Nifty at 20,150.20 points, up 0.23 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, Nifty banks, Nifty auto, Nifty financial services, Nifty IT, Nifty metal, and Nifty pharma were in the green, while Nifty FMCG, Nifty media, Nifty PSU bank, and Nifty realty were marginally in the red, NSE data showed.

“Even though the undercurrent of the market is bullish the high valuations and new risks like surging crude and rising dollar index can impact the market negatively,” said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

“Brent crude at USD 94 is a major macro worry which the market cannot ignore for long,” Vijayakumar added.

The benchmark indices added over 3 per cent each, respectively in the past month, after India's economy grew firm in the April-June quarter.

The Indian economy witnessing a firm GDP growth rate of 7.8 per cent in the first quarter (April-June) of 2023-24, and continued foreign portfolio investments are likely to have improved investors’ sentiment lately.