Mumbai, Jun 19 (IANS): The BSE Sensex jumped over 500 points on Friday after a choppy start to the day's trade.
Shares of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) witnessed a rally and touched a fresh all-time high of Rs 1,788.60 after the company earlier in the day announced that it has become a net debt-free company on the back of the recent investments by global investors into Jio Platforms and the 'Rights Issue'.
RIL has raised over Rs 1,68,818 crore in just 58 days. Its net-debt stood at Rs 1,61,035 crore, as on March 31, 2020.
Rahul Sharma, Research Head, Equity99 Advisors, said: "Reliance Industries led today's rally as the company announced it has become net debt-free, much before its original schedule of March 31, 2021."
According to Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, the market ignored potential fallout of India-China tensions and rising number of virus infections and resumed cheering a gradual resumption in business activities and an earlier-than-expected normalisation in certain consumption sectors.
Going ahead, he said that markets are likely to remain volatile as investors would track global cues and development around geo-political tensions.
"We would advise investors to look for buying opportunities on declines in market and focus more on stock specific action," Khemka said.
Inflow of foreign portfolio investments (FPI) was a major support for the stocks. Net inflow of FPI on Friday stood at Rs 1,237 crore, while the net outflow of domestic institutional investments was Rs 880.66 crore.
The Sensex closed at 34,731.73, higher by 523.68 points or 1.53 from the previous close of 34,208.05. It had opened at 34,335.38 and touched intra-day high of 34,848.37 and a low of 34,136.39.
The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange closed at 10,244.40, higher by 152.75 points or 1.51 per cent from its previous close.
The top gainer on the Sensex was Bajaj Finance, which ended 6.74 per cent higher, followed by Reliance Industries (up 6.23 per cent) and Power Grid (up 3.60 per cent).
The major losers were IndusInd Bank (down 2.94 per cent), HCL Technologies (down 1.63 per cent) and ITC (down 1.37 per cent).