Market rally continues for fifth day; Nifty hits new peak, Sensex up 281 points

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| Photo Credit: PTI

Stock markets closed higher for the fifth consecutive day on February 19 with the benchmark Sensex rising 281 points and Nifty scaling its fresh lifetime high driven by gains in financial and FMCG shares.

The 30-share BSE Sensex rose by 281.52 points or 0.39% to close at 72,708.16. As many as 17 Sensex shares advanced while 13 closed in the red. After a firm start, the index hit a high of 72,881.93 in day trade.

The broader Nifty closed at its all-time high of 22,122.25 points, up by 81.55 points or 0.37% from the last close.

The 50-issue barometer also scaled its intra-day record high of 22,186.65 helped by gains in pharma, banking and oil shares. As many as 27 Nifty shares posted gains while 23 declined.

“The overall sentiment appears to position Nifty for a potential upward movement towards 22,500-22,600 in the short term. The immediate crucial support is situated at 22,000,” said Rupak De, Senior Technical Analyst, LKP Securities.

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap rose by 0.29% while BSE SmallCap gained 0.77%, beating bigger peers. The BSE largecap was up 0.35%.

Among sectoral indices, BSE Telecom rose by 1.52%, BSE Utilities by 1.29%, BSE Consumer Durables by 1.76%, BSE Services by 1.22%, and FMCG by 0.84%.

Among losers, BSE Metal dropped 0.87%, Realty by 0.63%, Capital Goods by 0.62%, and IT by 0.26%.

Key stock indices closed in the green for the fifth straight day on Monday, gaining around 2.3%.

Overall market capitalisation of BSE listed shares surged to ₹391.69 lakh crore or USD 4.72 trillion, making investors richer by ₹2.20 lakh crore.

Among Sensex shares, Bajaj Finserve, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Finance, Sun Pharma, Maruti Suzuki, ITC, and Nestle were the lead gainers. On the other hand, L&T Wipro, IndusInd Bank and TCS and Tata Motors were the lead losers.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services, said, “Despite an unattractive risk reward, the broader market continued its outperformance in expectation of improvements in private capex and optimism about political stability.

“Benign input costs and expectations of a pickup in rural demand will aid corporate earnings growth.” Key Asian markets were mixed. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.8%, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 lost 0.04% while the Shanghai Composite index gained 1.4%.

U.S. market are closed on Monday on account of President’s Holiday. On Friday, US stocks closed in the red, with all three major indices logging weekly losses, as investors assessed inflation readings and company earnings.

On Friday, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) were net buyers as they purchased securities worth ₹253.28 crore, according to exchange data.