Four factors why Sensex opened at all-time high, Nifty hit 9450 level today

The Sensex and Nifty on Thursday opened at record highs, spurred by Met Department's normal monsoon forecast.  Buoyed by the IMD forecast, the BSE Sensex rose 264 points to quote at an all-time high of 30,197.66, while the broader NSE Nifty scaled 9,390.15 yesterday.

The indices continued their rally with the Sensex hitting a all-time high of 30,366.69 while the NSE Nifty scaling a new peak of 9,450.65 in opening trade today. Here's why the market touched its all time high today.

Also read: Stock markets: Corrections ahead, but they are not essentially bad

Monsoon forecast

The chief of the country's state-run India Meteorological Department on Tuesday said India looks likely to receive higher monsoon rainfall than previously forecast as concern over the El Nino weather condition eased.

Also read: India facing higher monsoon rains than forecast: IMD

Monsoon delivers about 70 percent of India's annual rainfall, critical for crops such as rice, cane, corn, cotton and soybeans as nearly half of the country's farmland lacks irrigation.

"The Met Department's bullish monsoon forecast eased concerns over El Nino weather conditions and added further legs to the ongoing rally, said Anand James, Chief Market Strategist, Geojit Financial Services Ltd.

Q4 corporate earnings

Healthy corporate earnings also buoyed sentiments at the Dalal Street.

"We believe the markets to continue this upward momentum. As the companies are able to post good earnings and now on the anticipation of better than normal monsoon, we expect markets to enjoy positive sentiments and see Nifty touching 9,500 in the coming session," said Foram Parekh, Research Analyst, Bonanza Portfolio Ltd.

Analysts said the long-term outlook for stocks remained healthy as earnings so far have been encouraging.

"The focus has been on the corporate results season, which has done quite well so far," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services Ltd.

FIIs turn net buyers after March 2017

The FIIs were net buyers of stock worth Rs 893.36 crore while the DIIs after being buyers for the past 2 weeks turned sellers in Wednesday's trade selling stocks worth Rs 229.73 crore. After a long gap, the FIIs have turned net buyer of equities - there is a possibility of large cap stocks participating in the rally now, said a report by Equinomics.

In March 2017, the FIIs bought Rs 26473 crore worth stocks in Indian market. In April, they turned net sellers offloading Rs 6,627 worth of stocks from their India basket.

During the last seven trading days this month, FIIs sold stocks worth Rs 1410.90 crore in Indian market with Rs 893 crore and Rs 332 crore buying during the last two days, being the only two exceptions.

Higher global markets

The rise in global markets provided steam to the domestic opening today.

Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.2 percent to 19,929.27 and South Korea's Kospi gained 0.8 percent to 2,288.90. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index advanced 0.3 percent to 25,096.16. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.3 percent to 5,891.60. But Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.4 percent to 3,041.00. Stocks in Taiwan, Singapore and Southeast Asia were higher.

In the US, stocks finished slightly higher on Wednesday on Wall Street. The Standard & Poor's 500 index picked up 0.1 percent to 2,399.63. The Dow Jones industrial average shed 0.2 percent to 20,943.11. The Nasdaq composite finished at a record for the fourth day in a row as it rose 0.1 percent to 6,129.14.