1. A break for Sensex and Nifty: After 7 straight sessions of record highs, Sensex dropped 264 points and closed at 85,571, while the NSE Nifty fell 37 points and ended at 26,178. This was due to weakness in heavyweight financial stocks like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank.
2. IT Stocks Surge: IT companies rallied up to 4% after Accenture’s better-than-expected earnings, driven by AI service demand. Major gainers included Infosys, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and Coforge.
3. Metal Stocks Shine: Metal stocks surged by up to 2%, with Vedanta, National Aluminium, and Hindalco leading gains as global metal prices increased, following China’s announcement of stimulus measures to boost its economy.
4. Sequent Scientific shares were up over 14% after the announcement of its Rs 8,000 crore merger with Viyash Life Sciences, making it one of the top individual gainers.
5. Global Markets Rally: Chinese blue-chip stocks surged 4.5%, which drove global markets higher. The Hang Seng gained 3.6% for the day and 13% for the week, its best performance since 1998, while MSCI’s world index touched a new peak.
