Sensex hits a record high: What is driving the stock market rally in India?
The stock market hit a record high on Friday, with Sensex and Nifty surpassing the 73,700 mark and 22,300 mark, respectively.
Both Sensex and Nifty touched their record highs on Friday, March 1, closing at a never-before-seen height at 3:30 pm. BSE Sensex saw a surge of over 1200 points at close, while Nifty rose by over 300 points on Friday.
Sensex on Friday rose by 1245 points to touch its all time high of 73,745, while its NSE counterpart Nifty rose by 344 points, touching its lifetime high of 22,327 points at 3:30 pm today.
Why are Indian markets surging?
The prime reason behind the surge of Sensex and Nifty in today's market rally was the faster-than-expected domestic economic growth in the previous quarter, surpassing the expectations of the analysts.
Out of the total thirteen sectors of listed companies on both indices, 10 logged major gains on Friday. The broader, more domestically focused small- and mid-caps gained 0.6% each, underperforming the benchmarks.
The rise in Sensex and Nifty levels is owed to the growth of Indian economy, which rose by 8.4 percent in the December 2023 quarter. This was the fastest economic growth recorded in the last six quarters.
How many Nifty stock are at a record high?
The total market capitalisation of all NSE-listed Indian stocks has risen to $4.64 trillion, slightly below the record high of $4.69 trillion, with eight of the Nifty 50 stocks logging new highs on the day. Besides these, 18 other Nifty 50 stocks have hit record highs in 2024 so far.
The global markets also gave a major push to Sensex and Nifty's spike on Friday. Similar to the Indian markets, Japan's Nikkei index also hit its all-time high on Friday, while US' Nasdaq also displayed a significant surge.
Foreign institutional investors also played a role in the stock market surge on the first day of the month. Foreign investors ended up buying shares worth ₹3598 crore in the last market session while domestic investors sold stock worth ₹230 crore over the past month.
Among the Sensex firms, Tata Steel jumped over 5 per cent while JSW Steel quoted with a gain of nearly 4 per cent. Larsen & Toubro, Titan, ICICI Bank and Tata Motors were the other major gainers. HCL Technologies, Infosys and Tech Mahindra were the laggards.
(With inputs from agencies)