Stock market winds up FY19 with 17.3 per cent gain

Mumbai: The stock market ended on an upbeat mood on Friday as market barometer Sensex clocked a gain of 17.3 per cent for the current financial year that comes to a close tomorrow. The Nifty-50 has also notched up a 15 per cent gain for 2018-19, helped by a stellar gain of 7.7 per cent in March alone.

This created a feel good sentiment on Dalal Street, unlike the calendar year close three months ago in December 2018, when the outlook was rather gloomy, with foreign investors in retreat from the Indian market. But this month has seen heavy overseas investors' interest in Indian equities.

The Sensex had closed the calendar year 2018 at 36,068.33 points and was trading in a very narrow range in the first two months of 2019. But the situation changed dramatically in March after the foreign investors started investing in a big way in Indian equities, with the US central bank halting further interest rate hike on growth concerns.

The March rally in the broader market helped investors' wealth to go up by Rs 8.83 lakh crore during FY19. The market capitalisation of BSE-listed companies rose by Rs 8,83,714.01 crore to Rs 1,51,08,711.01 crore. The bumper gains have come for investors back to back after investors’ wealth had surged Rs 20.70 lakh crore during 2017-18.

The Sensex advanced 5,704.23 points, or 17.30 per cent, during the current financial year. The index rose 127.19 points to finish at 38,672.91 on Friday, the last trading day of the financial year. During this year, the Sensex touched an all-time high of 38,989.65 points on August 29, 2018.

Small and mid-cap indices of the BSE suffered losses of up to 11.6 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively during 2018-19, lagging behind their blue-chip peers. According to market analysts, smaller stocks are generally bought by local investors, while overseas investors focus on blue chips.

March saw widely tracked NSE’s Nifty-50 index breaking out from a three-month consolidation period between 10,600 and 11,100 points and closing the fiscal year at 11,623.90 on Friday and is now very near to the all-time high of 11,760.20.

Umesh Mehta, Head of Research, Samco Securities, said “Twin Boosts” as the street expects the incumbent government to have higher chances of winning the seats again and the dovish stance by the US central bank aided in attracting foreign flows to Indian equities.”