Mumbai, Sep 24 (IANS)| India’s benchmark equity index S&P BSE Sensex crossed the 60,000 mark on Friday. It took 246 days to collect the last 10,000 points. The 30-point index crossed the milestone just after opening, with several index heavyweights driven by large caps touching their respective highs.
The Sensex opened at 60,158.76 points from the previous close of 59,885.36 points. It took only 42 days to get past 5,000 marks. At 12.10 pm, the Sensex is trading at 60,127.50 points, up 242.14 points or 0.40 percent from its previous close. NSE Nifty50 is trading above 17,900 points during the afternoon session. It opened at 17,897.45 points against its previous close of 17,822.95. Nifty touched a record high of 17,927.20 points. As a sector, realty, IT, media and telecom indices were the best performers since May 18, 2021.
Auto, pharma and metal indices declined. Among the 200 stocks on BSE, JSW Energy, Mindtree, IRCTC and Mphasis gained over 100 per cent during the period. Besides this, LTI, LTTS, Godrej Properties and Zee ENT were the other big gainers. The market cap of all the listed companies together crossed Rs 250 lakh crore. By noon the NSE Nifty 50 rose. It rose 60.75 points, or 0.34 per cent, to 17,883.70 from its previous close.
Siddharth Khemka, Head Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services said, “Domestic market is driven by positive global cues, strong inflows by FII or DII, good corporate earnings, falling Covid-19 cases, upbeat corporate comments and lower cost of capital. Amid an upbeat sentiment and increased activity, Nifty valuations edged higher and sought consistent delivery on earnings expectations.”
“Given the increased valuations, one cannot ignore the intermittent volatility. However, we expect the positive momentum to continue on the back of improving economic activity and improving corporate earnings.” According to Ashish Biswas, Head of Technical Research, Capital Via Global Research, “The market is rising due to excess liquidity and a lower interest rate regime. Investors felt relief from the Federal Reserve’s stance on withdrawal of stimulus and raising interest rates.” “FIIs and DIIs have invested more in the market, which has increased it further. The fear of third wave has also subsided and investors are not worried about the adverse effects on the economy as more and more people are getting vaccinated “
Further, Dheeraj Reilly, MD & CEO, HDFC Securities said, “This reflects the impact of withdrawal of FPIs and local investors, who are continuing to invest despite repeated exposure.” “The absence of a 10 per cent decline in the indices over the past 18 months reflects the maturity of local investors, but also increases the likelihood of that happening in the next few weeks or months.”