Nifty hits record high at 12,311, Sensex surges by 300 points

Mumbai: Nifty hit a record high of 12,295 on the NSE rising 80 points in the morning session on Friday. Sensex rose 267.93 points from the previous closing point and currently trading at 41,720.28. SBI held top position while ICICI Bank slumped to the bottom on the Sensex pack. 

Oil prices slumped on Friday extending days of losses as the prospect of a war in the Middle East looks bleak for now as Iranian missile attack on US military base in Iraq left no casualty. Meanwhile, PM Narendra Modi along with the Union Home Minister Amit Shah met the country’s top economists in a meeting at the government’s think tank Niti Aayog. 

The absence of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman who attended meeting with BJP office-bearers to collect feedback and suggestions for the upcoming union budget for 2020-21 raised eyebrows. The market will watch out for the Index for Industrial Production (IIP) for the month of November 2019 due later today. 

IIP had contracted 3.8%  in October 2019. IIP has been showing a continuous slump in the country’s industrial sector since August 2019. Manufacturing in October had shown showed deacceleration of output growth by 2.1 per cent while mining output fell 8 per cent. 

Infosys shares up nearly 2% ahead of Q3 results; what to expect

Shares of Infosys jumped as high as  2 per cent in the intraday trade Friday ahead of the December quarter results. The stock hit the day’s high of Rs 741.80 as against the previous close of Rs 727.55. The shares were trading at Rs 741.05, up 13.50 points, or 1.86 per cent on NSE at the time of reporting. 

The IT major is slated to announce its Q3 results at 3.45 pm later today. The company management will also hold a press conference at around 4:30 pm. The earnings hold significance as the market is expected to closely analyse any developments around the whistleblower issue. According to a CNBC TV-18 poll, Infosys may report a profit of Rs 4,200 crore and revenue of Rs 23,190 crore in rupee terms. The company may post a dollar revenue of 3,258 million. EBITDA may be Rs 5,180 crore.