Sensex surges 138 points on hopes of business-friendly Budget

Expectations of an industry-friendly, growth and reform-oriented Budget took the benchmark indices Nifty and Sensex to a new closing high on Monday.

While the Nifty closed at 7,787, up 36 points, the Sensex breached the 26,000-mark and closed at 26,100, up 138 points.

Strong fund flows “Investor interest in Indian mid-caps has exploded, driven by strong inflows into domestic mid-cap mutual funds. After a span of three years, local mutual funds are finally seeing net inflows,” said Gautam Trivedi, Managing Director & Head of Equities, Religare Capital Markets. A Goldman Sachs Research report on Asia Economics expected a fiscal deficit target of 4.3 per cent of gross domestic product for financial year 2015, lower than its previous estimate of 4.8 per cent. The financial services major also expected a medium-term consolidation path to bring the deficit down to three per cent of GDP by financial year 2018.

The other major triggers for the markets this week are trade data and IIP numbers. Foreign institutional investors bought net equity worth ₹199 crore while domestic institutional investors sold net equity worth ₹85 crore.

Barring banking, realty and energy, all the other sectoral indices closed in the green. Volatility was high throughout the day and the volatility index India Vix closed 6.9 per cent higher at 19.4075. There are expectations of margin expansion when companies start announcing their first quarter results from next week.