Marching on: Sensex scales 65k, Nifty crosses 19,300

Mumbai: India's leading equity benchmarks soared to fresh highs on Monday, extending their run of gains for the fourth session in a row. Monday's rally was backed by Reliance Industries, ITC, the HDFC twins and the pack of financial stocks. The 'risk-on' rally in global equities took the Sensex above 65,000 and the Nifty past 19,300 for the first time.

Both the Sensex and Nifty advanced nearly 1% to hit all-time highs on the back of sustained foreign fund inflows and broad-based buying.

The Sensex topped 65,300.35 on Monday, surpassing the previous high of 64,768.58 last Friday. The index closed at 65,205.05, up 486.49 points or 0.75% from the previous close.

The Sensex had hit a closing high of 64,718.56 on Friday.

Indices up 15% Since March Lows
The Nifty scaled a new high of 19,345.10, beating its previous record of 19,201.70. The gauge closed at 19,322.55, up 133.50 points or 0.7% from the previous close. Its previous closing high was 19,189.05.

"India has been the most fertile ground for picking stocks. The amount of interest we are seeing, especially from global investors, is off the charts," said Sunil Koul, executive director and Asia Pacific strategist, Goldman Sachs. "India is the best structural story out there in EM, but if you also look at the market historically, India has a very strong track record of generating returns."

On Monday, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) were net buyers of Indian shares for the fourth consecutive session. Overseas funds purchased shares in the cash segment worth a net Rs 1,995.92 crore. The market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms touched a fresh record of over Rs 298.21 lakh crore ($3.65 trillion).

Koul said India has generated the largest proportion of multibaggers when compared with 10 leading markets, emerging as well as developed. He acknowledged that valuations are expensive and said the market may consolidate in the near term after a steep rally in the last three months that saw India become the best-performing market in the second quarter from being the worst-performing one in the first quarter in dollar terms.