Bull run continues, D-St witnesses historic rally

Creating fresh milestones in the Indian stock markets, Dalal Street saw a historic rally on Tuesday as domestic stocks continued an overjoyed run for the fifth straight day. Riding with a wave of optimism, the BSE Sensex zoomed past the 36,000-level and the NSE Nifty breached 11,000 for the first time ever following the GDP forecasts of International Monetary Fund (IMF) for India coupled with positive global cues.

Both the key indices were driven by strong gains mainly in domestic metal, banking, IT and infra shares amid earnings optimism. The major trigger behind the boost in investors optimism was the IMF's forecast that India's GDP growth will hit 7.4 per cent in 2018-19 and the country will regain the status of the world's fastest growing major economy.

Intra-day, the Sensex hit a new high of 36,170.83 on the back of widespread gains in metal, PSU, oil and gas and financial counters. Finally, the 30-share index settled at 36,139.98, up 341.97 points, or 0.96 per cent, breaching its previous record of 35,798.01 reached on Monday. The gauge had risen 1,026.96 points in the previous four sessions.

The Sensex took just five trading sessions (from January 17 to January 23) to reach the historic 36,000-level from 35,000, while the NSE Nifty advanced to 11,000-mark from 10,000 in six months (July 26, 2017 to January 23, 2018). The Nifty too touched a new high (intra-day) of 11,092.90. It closed the session with a hefty rise of 117.50 points, or 1.07 per cent, at a fresh life high of 11,083.70, bettering its previous record close of 10,966.20 reached in Monday's trade.

However, experts believe that markets completely shrugged off higher crude prices and global geopolitical issues but totally relied upon domestic positives.

“Propelled by a combination of liquidity and optimism, Nifty rose to an all-time-high crossing 11,000. This bull-run, lasting for more than a year now, has seen markets ignore higher crude prices and global geopolitical issues while latching on to domestic positives. Such buoyancy in markets was last seen in 2000,” said Religare Broking President Jayant Manglik.

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1,567.51 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold equities worth Rs 461.87 crore on Monday as per provisional data.

Sensex components which supported the key indices to hit fresh highs were SBI (3.84 per cent), Tata Steel (3.72 per cent), ONGC (3.60 per cent), ICICI Bank (3.06 per cent), Coal India (3.04 per cent), IndusInd Bank (2.37 per cent), Infosys (2.16 per cent), Dr Reddy's (1.24 per cent), M&M (1.14 per cent), RIL (1.08 per cent), ITC (1.08 per cent), Yes Bank (1.01 per cent) and Maruti Suzuki (0.97 per cent).

Stocks of private sector lender Axis Bank ended 1.28 per cent higher after the company on Monday reported 25.34 per cent rise in net profit to Rs 726.44 crore for the December quarter of the current fiscal. Sectorwise, BSE metal index gained the most by rising 4.29 per cent, followed by PSU 2.15 per cent, oil & gas 1.93 per cent, bankex 1.63 per cent, IT 1.20 per cent, healthcare 0.94 per cent, teck 0.92 per cent and infrastructure 0.88 per cent.

Mid-cap and small-cap indices also continued to be on investors' radar and rose up to 1.13 per cent.