Sensex, Nifty clock record fiscal rally; add Rs 90.82 lakh crore to investor wealth

Sensex and Nifty clocked their best performance in over a decade for the fiscal ended March 31, 2021 staging a strong rebound from their worst crash ever. While Sensex rose 68.01% or 20,040 points, Nifty surged 70.87% or 6,092 points in last one year. The smart recovery in benchmark indices comes after Sensex and Nifty logged their highest losses ever on March 23, 2020.

While Sensex crashed 3,934 points to 25,981, Nifty closed 1,135 points lower at 7,610. Rising coronavirus cases and the resultant lockdown in 75 districts took a heavy toll on investor sentiment during the session.

From the last year's low, the indices rose to record highs of 52,516 and 15,431 on February 16 this year led by extension of gains after investors cheered Union Budget on February 1. The rally came amid signs of economic recovery across the globe, fall in  Covid-19 cases, introduction of coronavirus cases and record FII inflows into equities during the  current fiscal.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) infused a record $37 billion into equities in the fiscal, according to National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) data. The record rally in equities took the market cap of BSE listed firms to Rs 200 lakh crore on February 4 this year.

In this fiscal, investor wealth grew by a massive Rs 90.82 lakh crore in 2020-21. Market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies rose by Rs 90.82 lakh crore to reach Rs 204.30 lakh crore in 2020-21.

On March 3 this year, the market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms touched a lifetime high of Rs 210.22 lakh crore.

Top losers today: HDFC Bank, HDFC, Power Grid, Tech Mahindra fell up to 4%

"The bull-run got further strength with the progressive unlocking and sharp rebound in the economy. Discovery of vaccines and optimism it generated gave further strength to the bulls. Globally, markets witnessed a huge rally in November. Emerging markets continued to be flooded with FPI money," V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said.

Meanwhile, Sensex and Nifty closed lower today tracking weak cues from Asian markets. Sensex fell 627 points to 49,509 and Nifty ended at 14,690, down 154 points in the last session of the current fiscal.

On the sectoral front, banking stocks were the top losers, while rise in consumer durables stocks stemmed the fall. BSE consumer durables index closed 242 points higher at 32,825. On the other hand, BSE bankex slipped 545 points to close at 37,547. Bank Nifty too closed 571 points lower at 33,303.

Market breadth was negative with 1,396 shares closing higher against 1,486 ending lower on BSE. Market cap on BSE fell to Rs 204.28 lakh crore.