 "Sensex, Nifty record highest gain in five years")
The Sensex ended 6,329 points or 30% higher, while the Nifty closed 1,979 points or 31% higher compared to their respective closing figures as on December 31, 2013.
The strong market performance is attributed to strong flows into equities globally in general and the stable government at the centre following a landslide victory by Narendra Modi-led BJP government in particular. The new government introduced reforms to boost the sluggish economy and foreign institutional investors remained committed to India's growth story and brought in massive inflows.
Also Read
"The market performance comes in the wake of a stable government at the centre. Further, the government policies and improvement in macro-economic data was appreciated by foreign institutional investors," said Alex Mathew, Head-Research
at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.
Globally, the Sensex was the second best performing index among major nations after China's benchmark share index Shanghai Composite rising nearly 53% in 2014.
In percentage terms, the Sensex performance was the best since 2010 and the second best since 2009 when the benchmark index had soared 81%.
Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in Indian equities to the tune of $16.07 billion in 2014 till December 30.
Although the rally in the markets started late last year ever since the Modi magic swept the nation, the early months of 2014 saw a bit of consolidation with both the Sensex and Nifty hitting intra-day lows of 19963.12 and 5,933.30, respectively in February.
Thereafter both the Sensex and the Nifty scaled new heights in 2014. The Sensex galloped from 22,000 to 28,000 levels to hit a record high of 28,822.37 while the Nifty surpassed 7,000 and 8,000 levels to hit a record high of 8,626.95.
Further, the most significant day in 2014 was November 28 after the Bombay Stock Exchange joined the ranks of major global stock exchanges with market capitalisation topping the Rs 100 trillion mark for the first time in history. The market capitalisation of companies listed on the BSE doubled from Rs 50 lakh crore to Rs 100 lakh crore in about seven years.
The total market cap of BSE-listed companies on Tuesday, December 30, 2014 stood at Rs 98.37 lakh crore.
Financials which have a major weightage in the Sensex basket were among the major drivers with Axis bank soaring 93% to emerge as the top gainer along with SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and mortgage lender HDFC.
However, four Sensex stocks including index heavyweight Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, Tata Power and Wipro not only failed to match the Sensex returns but registered negative returns during the year.
IT majors made a comeback in 2014 with most of the activity seen in Infosys after Vishal Sikka took over the reins of the company, while TCS emerged as the first company to attain market capitalisation of Rs 5 trillion post its robust first
The BSE Consumer Durables and Bankex indices surged over 60% each to emerge as the top sectoral gainers followed by Auto, Capital Goods and Healthcare indices while Metal and Realty indices registering single-digit gains.
Meanwhile, the rally was not confined to large-caps but the broader market also witnessed sharp gains during the year. Prices of some stocks appreciated sharply with Page Industries, Eicher Motors hitting five digits while Shree Cements is
also seen heading to that level.
Sharp slide in global crude oil prices have been a saviour for India which has helped contain the fiscal and current account deficits even as the depreciating rupee remains a cause for concern. One party spolier in 2015 could possibly be the interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve.
Back home, investors are hoping that economic growth will eventually pick up pace, interest rates will ease, corporate earnings will improve and the Union Budget would be growth oriented. As of now all we can say is farewell 2014,
welcome 2015.