Sensex, Nifty Surge To Record Highs On Robust Buying By Domestic Investors

The Indian equity benchmarks surged to record highs on Monday on the back of robust buying by domestic institutional investors. Today’s surge to new all-time highs was led by gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Infosys, Axis Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and Asian Paints. The Sensex surged as much as 368 points to hit record high of 62,661.44 and Nifty 50 index climbed 92 points to hit an all-time high of 18,604.35. The benchmarks crossed new all-time highs for first time after 13 months.

Since October last year, the Indian markets have outperformed their global peers on the back of strong economic fundamentals and robust buying by domestic institutional investors despite fears of recession in developed economies like US and Europe, analysts said. 

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have so far this year sold shares worth Rs 1,37,167 crore while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) have absorbed that selling pressure by buying stocks worth Rs 2,57,172 crore, data from Ace Equities showed.

Meanwhile, shares skidded in Asia on Monday, with Hong Kong briefly dipping more than 4% following weekend protests in various cities over China’s strict zero-COVID lockdowns.

U.S. futures were lower after a mixed, shortened session Friday on Wall Street. Oil prices fell more than $2 a barrel.

The unrest in China is the boldest show of public dissent against the ruling Communist Party in years. It followed complaints that policies aimed at eradicating the coronavirus by isolating every case might have worsened the death toll in an apartment fire in Urumqi in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

China’s infection rate has been lower than in the United States and other countries, but the authorities are facing rising resentment over the economic and human costs of the approach known as “zero-COVID” as businesses close and families are isolated for weeks with limited access to food and medicine.

Back home, nine of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Oil & Gas index's 2.2 per cent gain. Nifty Private Bank, IT, Auto, and Bank indices were also rose between 0.3-0.5 per cent each.

On the other hand, metal, pharma, realty and healthcare shares were facing a mild selling pressure.

Bharat Petroleum was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose nearly 4 per cent to Rs 336. Reliance Industries, Hero MotoCorp, Asian Paints, IndusInd Bank, Tata Consumer Products, Wipro, Nestle India, Bajaj Auto, ICICI Bank and Divi's Labs also rose between 1-3 per cent.

On the flipside, Tata Steel, Coal India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Cipla, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Dr Reddy's Labs, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever and Britannia Industries were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,148 shares were advancing while 1,342 were declining on the BSE.