Sensex Marches To New Highs, Nifty Hovers Near 7,650

The Sensex and Nifty continued its record-setting streak on Monday. The Sensex and Nifty today rose nearly 1 per cent to set a new high of 25,644.77 and 7,673.

Strong global markets following impressive US jobs report and an upward revision of Japanese economic growth and healthy Chinese export figures also supported the sentiment.

Overseas investors have been aggressively buying Indian shares on hopes that the Narendra Modi-led government would take quick decision to put the economy back on track. The first test of the government's intentions would be the budget, which is likely to be announced in early July.

Foreign investors have been big drivers of Indian equities and so far this year they have poured nearly $16 billion into Indian stocks and debts year to date, according to Deutsche Bank.

Technical analyst Sarvendra Srivastava says as long as the 7,474 level is held, Nifty could touch 7800-8000 levels. However, independent analyst Sanjeev Bhasin told NDTV that markets are overbought, so there could be profit booking at higher levels. The trend continues to be bullish though intermittent corrections are likely, he added.

President Pranab Mukherjee today outlined Narendra Modi government's economic agenda in a joint session of Parliament. As expected, the agenda focuses on infrastructure development and revival of economic growth.

The CNX Infra index was up nearly 2 per cent with JP Infra, L&T, Tata Power and Reliance Infra rising between 2.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent. Realty stocks Unitech surged 13 per cent while DLF rose nearly 2 per cent.

Cement stocks seeing brisk buying and the top four Nifty gainers were Grasim Industries (9 per cent), UltraTech Cement (5 per cent), ACC (5 per cent) and Ambuja Cements (4 per cent). (Why cement stocks are up today?)

IT stocks, however, were under pressure as the rupee strengthened below 59 per dollar. Infosys traded 0.5 per cent lower.

ONGC fell around 3.5 per cent on profit-taking after rising nearly 11 per cent on Friday. RIL fell 0.5 per cent after jumping nearly 3 per cent in the previous session.

At 1:15 p.m., Sensex was up 177 points to 25,574 while Nifty rose 65 points to 7,648.