Sensex, Nifty Soar After Government Eases COVID-19 Lockdown Curbs

Edited by Sandeep Singh (with inputs from agencies)

01 Jun 2020, 12:57 PM IST

The S&P BSE Sensex surged to as high as 33,673.83 during the session

At 12:49 pm, the Sensex traded 1,088.95 points - or 3.36 per cent - higher at 33,513.05 while the Nifty was up 309.35 points - or 3.23 per cent - at 9,889.65.
Forty six stocks in the Nifty basket of 50 shares moved higher at the time. Bajaj Finance, Bajaj Finserv, Titan, Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra and SBI - trading between 5.64 per cent and 10.73 per cent higher - were the top percentage gainers.
Reliance Industries (up 4.39 per cent), HDFC Bank (4.28 per cent) and HDFC (5.27 per cent) alone accounted for a gain of more than 450 points in the Sensex.
The government permitted restaurants and malls to reopen from June 8, but extended lockdowns in high-risk zones until June 30 as a record high number of cases were detected nationwide on Saturday.
Official data on Friday showed India's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 3.1 per cent in the January-March period, its slowest pace in at least eight years.
Direct fiscal stimulus measures announced this month, mainly to provide subsidised credit and grain to small businesses and migrant workers respectively, are estimated at around 1 per cent of the GDP and will not be sufficient to drive an economic recovery, according to economists.
Equities elsewhere in Asia soared to three-month highs, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan last seen trading 1.97 per cent higher. Japan's Nikkei 225, China's Shanghai Composite, Hong Kong's Hang Seng and South Korea's KOSPI indices were up 1.18 per cent, 1.76 per cent, 3.41 per cent and 1.42 per cent respectively at the time.
The E-Mini S&P 500 futures were up 0.02 per cent in early Asian trade, indicating a flat to positive start for Wall Street on Monday.
On Friday, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite benchmarks had climbed up 0.48 per cent and 1.29 per cent respectively, but the Dow Jones Industrial Average index ended 0.07 per cent lower.
Earlier that day, the S&P BSE Sensex index had closed 223.51 points (0.69 per cent) higher at 32,424.10 and the broader NSE Nifty 50 benchmark settled at 9,580.30, up 90.20 points (0.95 per cent) from the previous close, as the markets extended gains to a third straight day.