New day, new high: Bulls 'just' 2K away from 40000 milestone

Bulls are getting to party quite frequently on the Street as every new day is bringing a new high.

Just nine sessions after crossing the 37000 peak, the benchmark index Sensex on Thursday hit its next milestone.

The index broke past the 38,000 milestone, while the broader Nifty ended above the 11450 mark.

Sensex closed 136.81 points, or 0.36%, higher to close at 38024.37, while Nifty rose 20.70 points, or 0.18%, at 11470.70.

Rahul Shah, VP- equity advisory at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said the both Sensex and Nifty are likely to touch 40000 mark and 12000 mark soon, with banking and metals stocks likely to contribute further to the rally.

A rally in bank stocks led by ICICI Bank gave a push to the milestone with Axis Bank and State Bank of India (SBI) being the other big gainers on Sensex. Bharti Airtel, ONGC and Titan were top losers.

Foreign and domestic fund inflows buoyed by robust corporate earnings kept investors tilted towards equities. Hope of a good show in the June quarter by State Bank of India (SBI) on Friday led investors betting big on the stock.

Metals too offered a bounce, with Nifty Metal index closing 1% higher over the previous close.

According to Vikas Jain, senior research analyst, Reliance Securities Ltd, major technical indicators on the weekly scale are trading above their averages, signalling strength in the Nifty.

The daily technical indicators are trading around overbought zone, hence such kind of sideways movement cannot be ruled out.

Stable move above 11400 will lift the index further, while on the lower side, it will find strong support at 11160.

Sameet Chavan, chief analyst-technical and derivatives, Angel Broking, said the momentum in benchmark was lost at the opening itself, and as a result, Nifty came off a bit from the kissing distance of yet another milestone of 11500. The index then consolidated in a small range throughout the session to conclude with nominal gains.

"This has been a great run and our markets seem to be enjoying this relentless move. The trend remains bullish and still there is a long way to go for the markets. Today's session was mainly propelled by heavyweight banking counters like ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and SBI, which contributed heavily to the banking index's outperformance. Apart from this, we continue to like the metal space which may outperform in the days to come." Chavan said.

V K Sharma, head private client group & capital market strategy at HDFC Securities, said the midcap and small-cap indices continued to do well where Nifty Smallcap index gained 14 out of last 15 trading sessions.

"Breadth were positive today. Metals, banks and realty were in demand while pharma was the laggard of the day. Immediate support for Nifty is seen at 11350 while resistance is around 10600 levels. We expect mid-caps and small-caps to continue to do well during the fag end of the earnings season," Sharma said.