Bull run on D-Street: Sensex zooms 1,000 points, Nifty above 24,150; bank stocks lead the rally

Markets at Mid-day: Nifty rises above 24,100 with Sensex gaining 900 points as Nifty Bank takes the lead

Markets continued to reflect a strong bullish sentiment on April 21 with gains close to 1.5% across BSE Sensex and Nifty50 while the Small cap and Mid cap indices were trading at a gain of 1.5%-1.8%. The India VIX is at 15.63-level, posting a gain of 1.03%. While most sectoral indices participated in the rally, the energy sector showed a minor dip. Bank Nifty surged 1,172 points to trade at 54,290, registering strong intraday buying interest.

At mid-day, the number of advancing shares stood at 2,568, which significantly outweighed the declining shares at 927, further confirming the widespread positive momentum.

Sectorally, the gainers were Nifty IT, Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Auto, Nifty Media, Nifty Metal, Nifty Realty, and Nifty PSU Bank. These are trading in a range of 1.65 to 2.68% higher than their last closing figures.

Only Nifty Energy showed a slight decline of 0.73%, indicating some profit-booking or sector-specific headwinds in the energy space despite the overall positive market. Nifty FMCG also picked up at mid-day

The top gainers on both the Sensex and Nifty were largely concentrated in the IT (Tech Mahindra), Financial Services (Bajaj Finserv, Axis Bank, HCL Tech), and Auto (Tech Mahindra, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Finerv, Eicher Motors) sectors.

As for the Bank Nifty touching record highs today, Axis Securities highlighted in its technical outlook that the index has, since 2016, repeatedly bounced off a certain long-term trend line (the 100-week EMA) six times. It typically went up by an average of 20% in the next three months. In most of those previous bounces (five out of six times), the Bank Nifty went on to reach new record high levels within the following 4 to 6 months.

ICICI Direct breaks down the technical overview, mentioning expectations of Nifty50 going up towards the 25,500 level in the next six months. Analysts are also viewing the recent period of decline as starting to look like it's running its course. The US dollar is range-bound (not strongly going up or down), and oil prices are weak, fuelling tailwinds for emerging markets like India.