Sensex finishes at 34,056 on last day of 2017, logs yearly return of 28%; Modi wave plays out?

Indian stock markets ended higher on Friday, 29 December 2017 — the last trading day — with Sensex and Nifty finishing near their respective record highs. This year has emerged as one of the best for India’s stock markets as the key equity indices Sensex and Nifty had risen in a range around 29% with blue-chip stocks such as  HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, Yes Bank, and IndusInd Bank returning up to 86%. Recently on 27 December 2017, BSE Sensex made an all-time high of 34137.97 while NSE Nifty marked it a high of 10,552.4. The benchmark Sensex had surpassed eight psychological levels this year, rising by more than 7,000 points added 7,430.37 points to finish at 34,056.83 while the 50-share indicator had moved up 2,344.9 points to conclude at 10,530.7.

The 30-share barometer Sensex has seen a couple of slumps in a journey from a level of 26,600 to 34,000 but many other factors kept the momentum going, such as World Bank ease of doing business upgrade, Moody’s sovereign credit rating upgrade, Modi government’s PSU bank recapitalisation and others. Apart from these uplifters, a lot of investor attention of investors all across the globe has been captured by the reforms of Narendra Modi government. During 2017, Sensex enjoyed a dream run a number of times led by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party winning the assembly elections in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Himachal Pradesh. After capturing these states, BJP now rules in 19 states leaving Congress to 4 states only. Meanwhile, many experts believe that the effects of demonetisation, GST will be seen in a longer run.

Shares of Tata Motors, Axis Bank, TCS, Hero MotoCorp, Adani Ports, Wipro, Asian Paints, Maruti Suzuki, HDFC gained up to 3.06% while on the other hand, DR Reddy’s, Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank lost up to 0.71%. The stocks of heavyweight companies such as TCS, Axis Bank, HDFC, Tata Motors, ITC, Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp, Infosys contributed heavily to the Sensex upsurge. Collectively these eight stocks alone added about 166 points out of the 208.8-point surge in the index. Sensex gained 208.8 points or 0.62% to settle at 34,056.83 while Nifty jumped 52.8 points or 0.5% to close at 10,530.7 on Friday. The broad market indices of National Stock Exchange, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 100, Nifty 200, Nifty 500, Nifty Midcap 50, Nifty Mid100 Free, and Nifty Sml100 Free advanced in a range of 0.5% to 0.9% while India Vix finished up 3.02% at 12.67. Amid the sectoral indices of NSE, except Nifty Media and Nifty Metal, all other indices closed in the green with Nifty IT, Nifty Auto, Nifty FMCG and Nifty Realty leading the charge.