Vaccine hopes boost Indian stock indices to close at record peaks

The Nity50 closed at an all-time high of 13,055.15 points and the Sensex ended the day at a peak of 44,523.02 points, with support from auto, bank stocks

MUMBAI

Optimism over the vaccine front against the novel coronavirus and the continued flow of foreign funds have boosted the Indian stock market, as on Tuesday the Nity50 crossed the 13,000 mark for the first time.

The Nity50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed an all-time high of 13,055.15 points with a rise of 128.70 points or 1 per cent and the BSE Sensex ended the day at a record peak of 44,523.02 points, a gain of 445.87 points or 1.01 per cent on Tuesday.

Healthy buying in auto, banking and finance stocks supported the indices. Optimism has been fueled in the global markets after the recent series of positive announcements on the vaccine front.

AstraZeneca announced on Monday that positive high-level results from an interim analysis of clinical trials of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate in the UK and Brazil showed it was highly effective in preventing the disease, the primary endpoint, and no hospitalisations or severe cases of the disease were reported in participants receiving the vaccine.

One dosing regimen showed vaccine efficacy of 90 per cent when ‘AZD1222’ was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart, and another dosing regimen showed 62 per cent efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart. The combined analysis from both dosing regimens resulted in an average efficacy of 70 per cent.