Nifty off its lifetime high, Sensex up over 450 points as Feb WPI shoots up

The benchmark Nifty50 index on Tuesday pared some gains after hitting its all-time high as investors saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi's landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh as an indication of him winning second term in office in Lok Sabha elections 2019.

The Nifty50 rose as much as 2% to a record high of 9,122 points surpassing its previous peak of 9,119 hit on March 4, 2015. The S&P BSE Sensex, meanwhile, gained 615 points to 29562 in intraday trade, 463 points shy of its lifetime high of 30,025 mark. 

At 01:30 pm, the 30-share Sensex was trading at 29,434, up 488 points, while the broader 50-share Nifty was ruling at 9,082, up 148 points. 

In the broader market, The BSE Mid-Cap and BSE Smallcap indices underperformed the frontline indices by rising 1.5% and 1%, respectively. 

The broad market depicted strength. There were almost two gainers against every loser on BSE. 1,734 shares rose and 870 shares fell. A total of 167 shares were unchanged.

The market is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.85 over the next 12 months, compared with their five-year historic average of 17.8, according to Thomson Reuters data.  

Meanwhile, inflation based on wholesale prices shot up to 39-month high of 6.55% in February because of costlier food and fuel items.

The Wholesale Price Index based inflation, reflecting the annual rate of price rise, in January was at 5.25%

According to the official data released today, food prices witnessed a sharp rise by 2.69% in February as compared to a deceleration by 0.56% in the previous month.

Among sectoral indices, BSE Bankex (up 2%), Capital Goods (up 3%) and Consumer Durable (up 1.4%) indices hit their respective 52-week highs. 

Among individual stocks, ICICI Bank rallied over 6% to Rs 287 and was the top Sensex gainer. 

Adani Enterprises gained 4% to Rs 98 after the company applied for financing from an Australian infrastructure fund to build a rail line that is part of a $16 billion coal project in the state of Queensland.

NBCC (India) rallied nearly 5% to Rs 178 after the state-owned company said it has secured a contract worth about Rs 250 crore in Mauritius.

Among losers, Alkem Laboratories fell over 2% to Rs 1,922 after the company said the US health regulator has inspected its Baddi plant and issued three observations on account of violation of good manufacturing norms.