Sensex hits all-time high of 50,321, Nifty crosses 14,800; IndusInd Bank, Dr Reddy's, PowerGrid top gainers

Sensex and Nifty hit their all-time highs in early trade as investors were enthused by a Budget  aimed at economic recovery amid Covid -19 crisis. While Sensex rose 524 points to record high of 50,321, Nifty gained 163 points to a fresh high of 14,810.

On Tuesday, Sensex closed 1,197 points higher at 49,797 and Nifty rose 366 points to 14,647. Today's rally was led by gains in heavyweights such as index-heavyweights Reliance, TCS and Infosys.

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IndusInd Bank was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising around 4.50 per cent, followed by Dr Reddy's, PowerGrid, Tech Mahindra, M&M, Sun Pharma and Axis Bank. On the other hand, Maruti, Kotak Bank, SBI and UltraTech Cement were among the losers.

"The risk-on is back in the market with massive FII inflows. There is huge delivery-based buying in HDFC twins, Tata Motors, RIL, ICICI Bank and many other bluechips," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) were net buyers as they purchased shares worth Rs 6,181.56 crore on Tuesday, as per exchange data.

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Meanwhile, Kotak Securities has raised its Nifty-50 December 2021 target to 15,000 and expects Sensex to reach 51,000 mark. 

Rusmik Oza, Executive Vice President (Head Fundamental Research-PCG), Kotak Securities, said: "We are revising our CY21 Nifty-50 target from 13,500 to 15,000 and BSE-Sensex target from 46,000 to 51,000. Since we last gave the CY21 target for Nifty-50 and Sensex in early December, earnings forecast has gone up by 6%. Post yesterday's budget, looking at Q3FY21 numbers that are coming and the very low base of first half of FY20, we feel there could be more earnings upgrades possible in the next few months. Our earlier CY21 end Nifty-50 EPS estimate was working to Rs 716 and we had benchmarked it at 19 times forward (19x Fwd) PE to derive at our 13,500 target. Our revised CY21 end Nifty-50 EPS estimate works to Rs 770. Assigning a slightly higher multiple of 19.5x (average of 19-20x) gives us a target of 15,000 for the Nifty-50 for end of CY21."