Sensex hits 80,000 for the first time

NEW DELHI: In yet another landmark for India’s equity market this year, the S&P BSE Sensex scaled the 80,000 mark on Wednesday for the first time. The 30-share benchmark hit a high of 80,057.90 during the first thirty minutes of the trading session. The Nifty50 index also hit an all-time high of 24,294.60.

Sensex has added the latest 10,000 points in less than seven months as it had first breached the 70,000 mark on December 11, 2023. Its journey from 60,000 to 70,000 was a lengthy one as it took 1.5 years for the market to add the previous 10,000 points. Sensex had scaled the 60,000 mark on September 24, 2021.

What is even more interesting is that the index has added about 8,000 points from the lows of June 4, the general election result day. Sensex had ended the June 4 session with a massive loss of 4,390 points, or 5.74%, at 72,079.05.

Much of Wednesday’s early gain is attributed to a sharp pick-up in HDFC Bank shares. The stock opened 3% higher on Wednesday and hit a high of 1,792 per share as its weightage is expected to shoot up in the MSCI index.

“The focus of market activity today will be HDFC Bank which will continue its upward move factoring in the news of potentially increasing the weightage of the stock in the MSCI Index. The delivery based buying in the stock witnessed in the last many days has the potential to continue for a few more days pushing the stock further up and imparting resilience to it. As the weightage of HDFC Bank in Nifty increases there will be more delivery based buying by ETFs and also active funds. There can be a marginal negative impact on other high weightage stocks in the Nifty like RIL, TCS, Infosys and ICICI Bank,” said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

He added, “The latest Fedspeak on US inflation is also positive news for equity markets globally. Responding to the inflation print of 2.6% with zero month on month increase Fed chief Powell yesterday made a dovish remark that the US is on a disinflationary path. The Fed’s next rate action is likely to be a rate cut. RBI also is likely to follow suit with a rate cut in the next policy meeting.”