Sensex breaches 65,000 mark for first time ever; Nifty also reaches new all-time high level

Mumbai: Benchmark equity indices continued their rally on Monday, with the BSE Sensex breaching the 65,000 mark for the first time ever, propelled by bullish global market trends and foreign fund inflows.

Rallying for the fourth straight day, the 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 449.46 points to hit its all-time peak of 65,168.02 in early trade. The NSE Nifty climbed 128.95 points to reach its lifetime high of 19,318.

From the Sensex pack, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, UltraTech Cement, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Finserv and ICICI Bank were the major gainers.

Power Grid, Maruti, Tech Mahindra, IndusInd Bank, HCL Technologies and Axis Bank were among the laggards.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong were trading in the green.

The US markets ended significantly higher on Friday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude dipped 0.01 per cent to USD 75.41 a barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought equities worth Rs 6,397.13 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.

GST collections crossed Rs 1.60 lakh crore mark for the fourth time since the roll-out of the indirect tax regime, rising 12 per cent to over Rs 1.61 lakh crore in June, the Finance Ministry said on Saturday.

The BSE benchmark had jumped 803.14 points or 1.26 per cent to settle at its lifetime closing high of 64,718.56 on Friday. The Nifty climbed 216.95 points or 1.14 per cent to end at a record high of 19,189.05.

"The ongoing rally in global stock markets is primarily driven by the surprising and unexpected strength of the US economy (2 per cent GDP growth in Q1 2023), in spite of the savage 500 bp rate hike by the Fed. Global markets, which had discounted a US recession by mid 2023, have been proved wrong and the markets are now compensating for the excessive pessimistic discounting in 2022," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said.

Sustained FPI flows (Rs 47,148 crore in June) is the main driver of the rally in India, Vijayakumar added.