Sensex sets another record closing high, Nifty above 6500

Moneycontrol Bureau

It was another session of record closing high for the market on Friday. Pre-election rally and consistent flow of foreign money drove the 50-share NSE Nifty above 6500-mark and the 30-share BSE Sensex near 22000 level.

Interest rate sensitives and commodity stocks helped the Sensex close at 21919.79, up 405.92 points or 1.89 percent after hitting a peak of 21960.89.

The Nifty touched an intraday all-time high of 6,537.80, before closing at 6526.65, 125.50 points or 1.96 percent.

As the market building up momentum ahead of general elections after announcement of polls dates, experts started forecasting benchmarks levels saying 6700-mark on the Nifty can’t be ruled out before elections and then 7000 by end of 2014.

The market has the tendency of building longs months ahead of the elections, Deven Choksey, MD, KR Choksey Shares & Securities said. He feels the moment Nifty crosses 6500, it may have steam left for another 150-200 points.

“History suggests that in four out of five general elections, the market has gone up anywhere between 5-35 percent, so the momentum is sure to continue going forward. FII flows too have continued pouring in,” he elaborated.

Meanwhile, Arvind Sanger, managing partner, Geosphere Capital Management is highly bullish on the India story after the current account deficit (CAD) saw a smart decline in Q3, saying the Nifty may touch 7000-7500 levels by end of 2014.

However, Johanna Chua, Chief Economist, Asia Pacific, Citi cautions that one should not get too excited because there still are lots of things that could happen from now upto the elections.

The broader markets did not participate in the rally; the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices fell 0.2 percent each and even the market breadth was not in favour of advances. Declining shares outnumbered advancing ones by a ratio of 1441 to 1360 on the BSE.

BSE Realty and Bank indices were the stars today, rallying 5 percent each followed by Oil & Gas and Capital Goods with a 4 percent upmove.

Shares of Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, Maruti Suzuki and BHEL surged 5-6 percent.

Engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro was up nearly 5 percent at close after hitting a fresh 52-week high of Rs 1,221.80 apiece. Brokerage house Citi is bullish on the stock. The firm raised its target price for the stock to Rs 1,305 from Rs 1,137.

Top telecom operator Bharti Airtel rallied 5.5 percent. Rating agency Standard and Poor's Rating Services raised long-term corporate credit rating on the company to BBB- from BB+ on likelihood of reduced leverage and improving regulations.

However, technology and healthcare stocks saw huge selling pressure as the rupee breached the 61 level intraday against the US dollar. BSE IT and Healthcare indices fell 2 percent each.

Shares of Wipro and Dr Reddy’s Labs plunged over 3 percent followed by Infosys with 2.5 percent fall and Sun Pharma with 1.4 percent loss. These companies get major revenues through exports.

Meanwhile, the rupee closed at 61.08 against the dollar today versus 61.11 a dollar in previous session.

Foreign institutional investors have bought more than Rs 9,500 crore worth of equity shares in 16 consecutive sessions, including today's provisional figure. They purchased Rs 2,577.44 crore worth of shares today, the highest daily inflow since September 19, 2013.