Sensex at 70,000, Nifty at 21,000 in 2022? It's possible!

Dalal Street witnessed a record-breaking 2021, with the key benchmark indices hitting new highs during the calendar year despite threats from Coronavirus variants – Delta and Omicron, high crude oil prices and change in monetary policy stance by central bankers around the world.
 
The BSE benchmark index, the Sensex, registered a life-time high at 62,245.43 on October 19, 2021 and gained 21 per cent in the calendar year 2021 till close of trade on December 30. In the process, the Sensex will log its best-ever calendar year gain in percentage terms since 2017.

Its counterpart, NSE Nifty, too, has surged 24 per cent in 2021. During the course of the year, the 50-share index had hit a lifetime high of 18,604 levels.
 
While the frontline indices – the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty 50 – notched up smart gains, 2021 actually belonged to the mid-and small-cap segments. Both the indices on the BSE surged around 37 per cent and 61 per cent respectively during the year, far outrunning their large-cap peers.

Among Sensex stocks, Tech Mahindra, Bajaj Finserv and Wipro were among the top performers in 2021.
  
Sector-wise, the year belonged to power, metal, realty and information technology sectors that were among the top performers in the year gone by.

And if you had an appetite for risk, there were opportunities galore. Some stocks in the midcap and smallcap index seemed to be on a mission to the moon!

At the fundamental level, calendar year 2022 is likely to see central bankers looking to unwind the highly accommodative monetary policy stance in the wake of inflationary concerns, though analysts feel the threat of a resurgence of another wave of the pandemic still remains a possibility.
 
Gaurav Dua, senior vice-president and head of capital market strategy at Sharekhan, says the winds of change would create some ripples in financial markets in the initial part of the year. However, like the earlier experience of tapering in 2012/2013, the situation will improve as the year progresses.
 
On Friday December 31, the last trading day of 2021, the markets are likely to bide time and remain range-bound as investors and traders lock in year-end gains or book losses.

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