It was literally an early Diwali on Dalal Street on Monday as the stock market scaled an all-time peak in intra-day deals. The optimism was led by firm global cues after Democrat Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the US Presidential Elections 2020. The S&P BSE Sensex rallied as much as 752 points, or 1.79 per cent during the session to hit a record high of 42,645.33 levels against Friday's close of 41,893.06. NSE's Nifty, too, hit a fresh record high of 12,474 levels in the intra-day session.
Sensex eventually settled at 42,597, up 704 points while Nifty ended at 12,461, up 197 points.
The broader market, too, participated in the rally though it underperformed the frontline indices. The S&P BSE MidCap index gained 1 per cent to 15,560 points and the S&P BSE SmallCap index settled at 15,305, up 0.57 per cent.
Sectorally, all the indices advanced while Nifty Media remained unchanged.
Among buzzing stocks, shares of IndusInd Bank hit an over seven-month high of Rs 777.80, up 5 per cent on the BSE on Monday. The stock of the private sector lender traded higher for the six straight session and has rallied 33 per cent during the period.
Escorts hit a fresh record high, in the intra-day trade on the BSE on Monday on the expectation of better-than-expected demand for tractors in the domestic market in the current fiscal. This demand improvement, analysts say, could translate into good revenue growth for the company. The stock, eventually settled at Rs 1,356, up around 5.5 per cent.
On the macro front, global credit conditions are likely to improve overall in 2021, aided by unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy support in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, Moody's Investors Service said on Monday.
However, the initial, rapid economic rebound is giving way to a patchier, more tenuous recovery, as the pandemic proves hard to contain, Moody's added.
Now, let's take a look at the global markets.
World stocks hit a record high on Monday and the dollar stayed weak as expectations of better global trade ties and more monetary stimulus under US President-elect Joe Biden supported risk appetite.
In commodities, oil prices rose more than 2 per cent, with Brent futures topping $40 a barrel.
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