Closer to Sensex moves past 49K-mark
` 200-L cr m-cap milestone
India's most widely tracked equity index, the Sensex, seemed cruising to the
50000-mark, an unthinkable milestone a few years ago, as it closed above the
49000-mark for the first time, gaining 486.8 points to close the day at 49,269.32.
The new record high came on positive global cues and third quarter earnings expectations, fall in daily Covid cases and high expectations from the upcoming union budget.
The Nifty 50 Index, too, closed at a new high of
14484.75, up 137 points, or
0.9 per cent.
With the ongoing massive rally, the BSE’s market capitalisation is getting closer to the Rs 200-lakh crore mark, as it is now at Rs
196.56 lakh crore.
After the IT sector bellwether Tata Consultancy Services posted impressive third quarter performance last Friday, IT stocks made hefty gains on Monday, with the BSE IT Index moving up 3.63 per cent.
Another sector that helped market benchmarks gain close to 1 per cent was automobile. The BSE Auto Index was up
2.56 per cent.
The top gainers included Infosys (4.90 per cent), Wipro (3.87 per cent), Tech Mahindra (2.54 per cent). TCS (1.75 per cent) and HCL Technologies (6.09 per cent).
TCS hit a new all-time high of Rs 3,224 before closing at Rs 3,175. TCS market capitalisation soared to Rs
11.91 lakh crore, close to top company by marketcap, Reliance Industries (Rs 12.02 lakh crore) as the latter's stock price fell 1.8 per cent to Rs 1,897 on the BSE.
Recounting the day's market movement Shrikant Chouhan, analyst-equity technical research, Kotak Securities, said, “Another day with tremendous gains for the market. Markets closed higher for the day, led by auto, IT, pharmaceuticals and select FMCG stocks...It seems that the market has gained momentum due to the bright possibilities of bold announcements in the forthcoming union budget."
The top auto sector gainers included Tata Motors
(11.11 per cent), Ashok Leyland (3.8 per cent), Maruti (2.75 per cent), Bajaj Auto (2.40 per cent) and Mahindra & Mahindra
(2.37 per cent).
Foreign portfolio investors were net buyers on Monday of equities worth Rs 3,138.90 crore while the domestic institutions were net sellers by Rs
2,610.13 crore.