Closing Bell: Sensex achieves fresh lifetime highs, Nifty also crosses 12,000 mark

Benchmark indices opened marginally higher on Monday and also ended with record high mark at 40,267.62 points while Nifty also crossed 12,000 mark and ends near 12,100 points.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is slated to announce its bi-monthly policy Thursday. The central bank had cut the short-term lending rate (repo rate) by 25 basis points each in its last two policy reviews.

The MPC headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das will meet for three days beginning June 3 to firm up the second bi-monthly monetary policy of the fiscal.

According to experts, the Reserve Bank may go for another round of rate cut, third in a row, on Thursday to prop up the economic growth which dropped to a five-year low in the final quarter of 2018-19.

Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors bought equity worth Rs 676.15 crore on Friday, and domestic institutional investors purchased shares to the tune of Rs 394.09 crore, provisional data available with stock exchanges showed.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in China, Japan and Korea were trading on a weak note in their respective early sessions. On the currency front, the rupee also appreciated 24 paise to 69.45 against the US dollar.

Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, were trading 1.13 per cent lower at 61.29 per barrel.

(With inputs from PTI)