Indian stocks climbed Monday morning, with the benchmark Sensex crossing the 70,000 mark, as investors retained market optimism despite high valuations.
The BSE Sensex rose over 100 points to trade above 69,900 in early deals. The broader NSE Nifty 50 index also added 25 points to quote above 20,990.
Buoyant retail participation and strong foreign and domestic inflows are overlooking expensive valuations to fuel the ongoing rally, said VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
The market breadth remained positive, with small and mid-cap shares rising between 0.3% to 0.6%. Among sectors, IT, realty, and FMCG indexes they gained while pharma fell over 1%.
In stock-specific action, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories shares plunged 6% after the U.S. FDA handed the drugmaker a Form 483 for its research facility with three observations.
The advances come after the Sensex and Nifty closed 0.3% and 0.2% higher respectively on Friday. The Nifty had notched closing highs above 21,000 earlier last week.
The Indian rupee opened slightly higher at 83.37 per U.S. dollar Monday after weakening marginally in the previous session.
While foreign investors have poured $1.7 billion into domestic equities this month, crude oil prices trading near $76 per barrel weighed on the local unit and imported inflation.
Equities in Asia witnessed mixed trends Monday following a positive lead from Wall Street Friday. Investors now await key U.S. inflation figures due this week for clues on the Federal Reserve rate hike path.
