Share Market Highlights: Sensex up by 610 points; Nifty closes at 15,315

Share Market Highlights: The Sensex and Nifty today logged gains of around one per cent amid positive global cues. The BSE Sensex closed 509.83 points, or 1.18 per cent, up at 52,154.13 and the NSE Nifty climbed 151.40 points, or 1 per cent, to settle at 15,314.70. Nifty Bank went up by 1,297.35 points, or 3.32 per cent, to end at 37,306.25.

On the BSE, 1,375 shares rose and 1,668 shares fell. On the Nifty 50 index, 28 stocks advanced and 22 stocks fell. The top five gainers on Nifty 50 were Axis Bank (up 6.21 per cent), ICICI Bank (up 4.16 per cent), SBI (up 3.96 per cent), Bajaj Finance (up 3.56 per cent), IndusInd Bank (up 3.08 per cent). The top five losers were SBI Life (down 2.29 per cent), HDFC Life (down 2.05 per cent), Dr Reddy's (down 1.77 per cent), Tata Steel (down 1.40 per cent), and TCS (down 1.31 per cent).

COVID-19 Update

Total Covid-19 confirmed cases worldwide were at 10,88,12,222 with 23,99,793 deaths. India reported 1,39,637 active cases of Covid-19 infection and 1,55,732 deaths while 1,06,21,220 patients have been discharged, data showed.

Economy Update

The rate of inflation, based on monthly WPI, was at 2.03% (provisional) for January 2021 (over January 2020) as compared to 3.52 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year. All commodities index was at 2.03 per cent in January 2021 as against 1.22 per cent in December 2020 and 2.29 per cent in November 2020. The food index was at (0.26 per cent) in January 2021 from 0.92 per cent in December 2020 and 4.79 per cent in November 2020.

India's retail inflation, measured by CPI, eased to 4.06 per cent in January 2021. The retail inflation during December 2020 was at 4.59 per cent.

Separately, the country's factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), witnessed a growth of 1 per cent in December 2020, data showed on Friday. The IIP had grown 0.4 per cent in December 2019, the data showed.

The UK has now issued a first COVID-19 vaccine dose to more than 15 million people across all four of its top priority categories, in what Prime Minister Boris Johnson described over the weekend as an "extraordinary feat." Government data showed Japan's economy growing 12.7 per cent on an annualised basis between October and December last year.