Sensex and Nifty close at record highs, the rupee slide

Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty settled at fresh record highs of 38,336 and 11,582, each on Thursday due to profits in energy, IT, auto and power stocks.

The Indian rupee again dropped below 70 against the United States dollar early on Thursday and stayed there till the evening. The currency was trading at 70.11 at 5 pm and the rupee had last shut down at 69.81 on Tuesday as the foreign exchange market was closed on Wednesday because of Bakrid.

The 30-share Sensex surmounted an all-time (intra-day) high of 38,487.63 in early trade yet it slipped to 38,227.36, before finally ending at 38,336.76 points, up 51.01 points, or 0.13 percent. It even surpassed previous record closing of 38,285.75 reached on 21 August.

Stocks like FMCG, information technology, and capital goods went up whereas Healthcare and power stocks too closed nearly exceedingly. Automobile, oil, realty and telecom stocks ended on an average note, wherein the metal and bank stocks were ended weak.

The market breadth stays unfavorable as 1,503 stocks declined on BSE against 1,215 advancers. As many as 177 stocks settled without any change.

Reliance Industries and TCS were in a close fight in terms of market capitalization (m-cap) race. Reliance Industries turn out to the first listed Indian company to mark Rs 8 lakh crore market valuation. The m-cap of Reliance Industries stood at Rs 8,04,691 crore, higher than TCS' Rs 7,79,287.34 crore. RIL shares hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 1,273, then settling at Rs 1,269, increasing 1.86 percent.

The top five profitable stocks on the Sensex were Larsen & Toubro, NTPC, Reliance, Adani Ports and Maruti Suzuki. The stocks which faced major loss were Tata Motors, Vedanta, Tata Steel, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Bajaj Auto.

the top five stocks on Nifty 50, were Tech Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, Dr Reddy’s, NTPC, and HCL Technologies. The stock recorded major losses were Tata Motors, Hindalco, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation.