Stock markets continue upward trajectory

Mumbai, July 15: The Indian benchmark indices on Monday continued their upward momentum driven by positive expectations from the upcoming Union Budget and robust foreign institutional investor (FII) inflows, along with better-than-expected results from the IT sector.

While the Sensex closed at 80,664, up 146 points, the Nifty reached 24,586, up 84 points, on Monday.

Nifty Bank closed at 52,455, up 177 points.

Nifty climbed to a fresh all-time high during the day amid buying across sectors.

ONGC, SBI Life Insurance, Shriram Finance, SBI, and Bajaj Auto were among the top gainers on Nifty.

Among the top losers were LTIMindtree, Asian Paints, Grasim, Tata Steel, and Tata Consumer.

The BSE midcap index gained 1 per cent, while the smallcap index was up 0.2 per cent.

According to market watchers, the initial results from PSU banks have triggered a strong rally in the PSU index.

However, the degree of optimism in the broad market is moderating as we are heading towards the Budget Day next week, they noted.

According to Rupak De from LKP Securities, the index started in the green and remained sideways during the day.

“On the higher end, resistance is placed at 24,650, above which further upside looks possible,” he said.

The indices opened on a positive note amid IT quarterly results and FII buying.

The FIIs turned net buyers on July 11 as they bought equities worth Rs 4,021 crore, while domestic institutional investors extended their selling as they sold equities worth Rs 1,651 crore.