Sensex, Nifty soar to lifetime highs as Samvat 2077 gets off to bright start
Mumbai: Domestic equity benchmarks surged to lifetime highs on Saturday as investors built up fresh positions in the special Muhurat trading session to mark the beginning of Hindu Samvat year 2077.
The 30-share BSE Sensex soared 194.98 points or 0.45 percent to close at a record 43,637.98. Intra-day, it hit its all-time high of 43,830.93.
On similar lines, the broader NSE Nifty advanced 60.30 points, or 0.47 percent, to finish at its lifetime high of 12,780.25. It touched an intra-day record of 12,828.70 during the session.
In the Sensex kitty, prominent gainers were Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Finserv, ITC, Infosys, HDFC Bank, and ONGC, spurting up to 1.17 percent.
Only four constituents closed in the red -- PowerGrid, Titan, UltraTech Cement, and Bajaj Finance, which shed up to 0.32 percent.
Brokers said buying activity gathered momentum as investors opened their new books on the first session of Samvat 2077.
All BSE sectoral indices finished in the green, led by oil and gas, telecom, industrials, realty, tech, and energy.
A similar trend was seen in the broader markets, with the BSE small-cap index jumping 0.84 percent and the mid-cap gauge gaining 0.62 percent.
Domestic markets conduct a special one-hour Muhurat trading session on Diwali every year to mark the beginning of the traditional Hindu calendar year, called 'Vikram Samvat'.
In the previous Samvat 2076, the BSE Sensex gained 4,384.94 points or 11.22 percent, while the Nifty rallied 1,136.05 points or 9.80 percent.
The BSE and NSE will remain closed on Monday (November 16) on the occasion of 'Diwali Balipratipada'.
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 1,935.92 crore on Friday, while domestic institutional investors sold to the tune of Rs 2,462.42 crore, as per provisional exchange data.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
