Markets end at fresh lifetime highs; Sensex above 49,700

Marco Green

January 21, 2021

Bajaj Finance was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 3 per cent to Rs 5,143 after the lender reported a 29 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,145.98 crore for the three months to December due to higher losses and provisions. The 30-share BSE index surged over 300 points to hit an all-time high of 50,127 in early trade; while the broader NSE Nifty moved almost 100 points higher to 14,738.

Among the sectoral indices on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the Nifty Auto index was trading over 1 per cent higher on early trade Thursday driven by gains in the shares of Tata Motors, Eicher Motors and Bajaj Auto.

"The liquidity expansion by the central bank and the ample FII driven liquidity, a V shaped recovery of growth aided by the discovery of vaccine, and most recently the change of guard in United States have been some of the factors propelling markets higher and higher". As the sensex crosses the 50k, the valuations do look stretched.

Mid- and small-cap shares were in-line with their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices rose 0.7 per cent.

Significant losers were Power Grid Corporation, Shree Cement, Gail, NTPC and HDFC Bank, down by 2.1%, 1.8%, 1.56%, 1.04% and 0.92%, respectively.

US equities finished at record highs on Wednesday after Joe Biden was sworn in as the President of the United States and he vowed to take all necessary measures to bring back the USA economy on track.

Equities have been hitting record highs since November past year, which means that the markets have been making fresh records for three straight months.

As of 9:18 am, the Sensex rose 222 points to 50,038 and Nifty 50 index advanced 63 points to 14,708.

The rises in Asia followed fresh record highs on Wall Street overnight. HCL Tech rose by 1.15 percent, Tech Mahindra by 1.14 percent, TCS by 0.85 percent and Infosys by 0.74 percent. On Thursday, e-mini futures for the S&P 500 ticked up to new records and were last up 0.26 per cent.