Market at all-time high: Sensex crosses 63,700 level; Nifty trades above 18,900 for first time ever; Adani Enterprises up 4%

Indian equity benchmarks traded higher to touch their all-time high levels in early deals on Wednesday. The domestic indices were up led by gains in metals, state-owned banks, consumer durables and automobile stocks. The 30-share BSE Sensex pack rose 301 points or 0.49 per cent to hit an all-time high of 63,716 in opening deals, while the broader NSE Nifty moved 91 points or 0.48 per cent up to trade at its lifetime peak of 18,908. Mid- and small-cap shares were positive as Nifty Midcap 100 edged 0.43 per cent higher and small-cap rose 0.70 per cent.

On the global front, Wall Street equities edged higher overnight as sentiment improved on strong economic data. Asian markets were mixed, dragged by lacklustre economic data from China.

Back home, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought a net Rs 2,024 crore worth of Indian equities during the previous session, while domestic investors sold Rs 1,991 crore of shares, as per provisional NSE data.

All 15 sector gauges -- compiled by the National Stock Exchange -- were trading in the green. Sub-indexes Nifty Metal, Nifty PSU Bank, Nifty Consumer Durables and Nifty Auto were outperforming the NSE platform by rising as much as 0.78 per cent, 0.61 per cent, 0.54 per cent and 0.44 per cent, respectively.

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"There is renewed vigour in the market which bulls might utilise to take the Nifty to new record. The rise in the benchmark indices yesterday was mainly due to the surge in HDFC twins whose merger is likely to happen on 1st July. The huge delivery volumes in HDFC twins (Rs 2,900 crore) indicate that selling in the stocks to abide by the 10 per cent holding ceiling for mutual funds is getting absorbed by interested buying. However, the high market valuation  continues to be a concern for the near-term. Investors can book some profits at record highs," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Housing Development Finance Corporation and HDFC Bank are working towards completing their merger by July 1 and may set July 13 as the record date for swapping shares, HDFC said.

On the stock-specific front, Adani Enterprises was the top gainer in the Nifty pack as the stock gained 3.70 per cent to trade at Rs 2,369. Adani Ports, Bajaj Finance, ITC and SBI rose up to 2.15 per cent.

In contrast, HDFC Life, Tech Mahindra, Sun Pharma, Cipla and Axis Bank were among the top laggards.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,961 shares were advancing while 745 were declining on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, HDFC twins (HDFC and HDFC Bank), ITC, Reliance Industries, Infosys, Bajaj Finance, L&T and SBI were among the top gainers.

Also, Suzlon Energy, Aavas Financiers, EPL and Delta Corp jumped up to 4.49 per cent. On the other hand, Adani Green Energy, HDFC Life, Birlasoft and NHPC slipped up to 2.23 per cent.

Today's session would be the expiry for June derivatives series. Indian markets would be closed on Thursday for the Eid holiday.

Sensex had surged 446 points or 0.71 per cent to settle at 63,416 yesterday, while Nifty had moved 126 points or 0.68 per cent higher to close at 18,817.

Nifty outlook

"Nifty witnessed a strong rise especially in the second half of the session once again to move past the 18,800 zone and closed on a positive note with improved bias and sentiment. On Tuesday, HDFC twins pulled the index in the final hours along with other banks like ICICI Bank, SBI, Axis Bank and Kotak Bank with the new Highs in close vicinity for both Nifty and Nifty Bank indices. The support for the day is seen at 18,700 levels while the resistance is seen at 18,950 levels," said Vaishali Parekh, Vice-President - Technical Research at Prabhudas Lilladher.

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