Nifty hits record high, Sensex closes in on new peak as Budget uncertainty ends

Nifty, Sensex surged close to 2 percent on February 2.

The Nifty scaled a fresh record high and the Sensex, too, was on course to conquer a new peak, as the benchmarks exhibited bullish momentum on February 2 after the uncertainty over the Budget ended a day earlier.

The benchmarks started the session on a positive note and extended the uptrend as the session progressed.

Around 12.20 pm, the Sensex was up 1,164.36 points or 1.63 percent at 72,809.66, and the Nifty was up 361.70 points or 1.67 percent at 22,059.20 after hitting a lifetime high of 21812.

Market breadth titled heavily in favour of gainers, as around two stocks rose for each that fell. About 2,068 shares rose, 1,082 fell while 63 remained unchanged.

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Upbeat cues from global markets, broad-based gains across sectors and strong upmoves in heavyweights like RIL, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, TCS and Kotak Mahindra Bank were the major drivers for the Nifty and Sensex.

Positive global cues

Markets in the US ended with strong gains overnight as investors shifted focus from the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision to corporate earnings. Stellar quarterly performances from technologies companies ushered positivity, pushing the three US benchmarks higher.

Asian markets also followed cues and moved higher in early trade today, sending positive sentiments for domestic equities as well.

Heavyweights lead from the front

A slew of index heavyweight stocks exhibited strong moves, doing much of the heavy lifting in Nifty 50's solid upmove.

Shares of oil-to-chemicals conglomerate Reliance Industries surged 3 percent to close in on a market capitalisation worth Rs 20 lakh crore.

Other than that, banking heavyweights ICICI Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank also soared 1-2 percent while major technology names Infosys and TCS jumped around 3 percent each.

All sectors contribute

The gains in today's session were supported by a strong show across sectors. All sectoral indices traded in the green.

In fact, most frontline sectoral indices- information technology, automobiles, banking, energy, metals and pharma were 1-3.5 percent.

Major events out of the way

There was a lot of uncertainty around two major events - the budget and the FOMC meet which had triggered market participants to exhibit a 'sell-on-rise' sentiment. However, with all ifs and buts around these events over, the air around it cleared and investors shifted back their focus to the ongoing Q3 earnings season.

Momentum likely to sustain

Analysts at ICICI Securities expect the upside momentum to sustain in the coming sessions. "We expect volatility to subside and focus to shift towards earning season and global cues. Thus, dips should be capitalised as incremental buying opportunity as we expect Nifty to hold the key support threshold of 21,100," they added.

Sudeep shah, head of derivative and technical research at SBI Securities also agrees and believes that the Nifty 50 could witness an extension of its rally towards 22,070-22,150 levels.

Also Read | What Shankar Sharma, Madhu Kela, Sandeep Tandon & Prashant Jain are betting on post-Budget

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