Sensex closes at an all-time high of 65,479; Financial stocks shine

Hi everyone, this is Neha Vashishth from ETMarkets and once again I welcome you all to ET Market Watch - your daily podcast for stock market updates. Let's start with today's highlights...

-Sensex and nifty ended at a fresh record high for the fourth straight session today
-The indices were led by banking, financial, and IT stocks.
-Sensex rose 274 points and settled above the 65,400 mark while Nifty surged 66 points and ended above the 19,300 mark

Today's gainers & losers
Bajaj Finance closed over 7% higher after the company's AUM rose 32% to Rs 2.7 lakh crore as of June 2023 in Q1. Bajaj Finserv, Tech Mahindra, Sun Pharma, NTPC, Titan, Wipro, TCS, and Kotak Bank also closed higher.
On the flip side, Bharti Airtel, Axis Bank, Reliance, IndusInd Bank, Tata Steel, and UltraTech Cement closed lower.

Shares in the news today
Hero MotoCorp also closed over 4% higher after Hero and Harley-Davidson launched their co-developed premium motorcycle – the Harley-Davidson X440 in India.

Sector-wise, Nifty PSU Bank rose 1.89%, and Nifty IT advanced 1.04%. Nifty Financial Services and Nifty Pharma also closed higher. In the broader market, Nifty Midcap100 dropped 0.20%, while Smallcap100 gained 0.25%.

Global Markets
Global stocks were steady as investors balanced the inflationary force of rising oil prices with hopes that central banks would not over-tighten monetary policy into a potential recession. Nikkei 225 in Tokyo shed 0.9%, Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 0.4%

Oil and Rupee
Indian rupee ended slightly lower against the dollar weighed down by dollar demand from importers. The rupee ended at 82.02 per dollar.

Now, oil prices ticked higher as markets weighed supply cuts for August by top exporters Saudi and Russia against a weak global economic outlook. Brent crude futures were at $75.50 a barrel while US WTI crude was at $70.61 a barrel. That's all for today, stay tuned to ET Markets for more.