The benchmark indices settled at their fresh closing highs on Monday led by select index heavyweights, such as the SBI, ONGC, NTPC, and ITC. Nifty climbed to a fresh all-tile high amid buying across the sectors, barring Information Technology.

Nifty50 hit a fresh all-time high of 24,635.05 during the session and closed 85 points, or 0.35%, higher at 24,586.70. Sensex touched its day’s high of 80,862.54, and ended at a new closing high of 80,664.86, up 146 points, or 0.18%.

The BSE Midcap index closed 0.95% higher, while the Smallcap index rose 0.21%. The overall market capitalisation of the firms listed on the BSE rose to nearly ₹455.1 lakh crore from nearly ₹452.4 lakh crore in the previous session.

On BSE, over 300 stocks, including Tech Mahindra, ONGC, SBI Life, Wipro, Zomato, Lupin, HDFC AMC, GAIL, Dr Reddy’s, Dabur and Britannia, hit their fresh 52-week highs.

On Nifty50, 34 stocks ended in the green, out of which, the top gainers were ONGC (5.18%), SBI Life (2.95%) and Shriram Finance (2.88%).

LTIMindtree (1.63%), Asian Paints (1.34%), and Grasim (1.33%) were on the flip side.

Among sectors, except IT all other sectoral indices ended in the green with auto, pharma, PSU Bank, realty, and oil & gas indices up 1-3%.

Nifty PSU Bank index clocked a strong gain of 3.07%, Oil & Gas (1.99%), Media (1.53%), Realty (1.34%), Healthcare (1.28%), Pharma (1.13%) and Auto (1.09%). Nifty Bank rose 0.34%, while the Private Bank index ended flat.

Experts believe that the market sentiment is supported by expectations of a pro-growth Budget, healthy Q1 earnings of India Inc., and the return of foreign capital inflow.

Another key development was that the Northern Arc Capital and Shree Tirupati Balajee Agro Trading Company have received approval from capital markets regulator SEBI to go ahead with their IPO plans.

SEBI issued an observation letter to Northern Arc Capital on July 10, and Shree Tirupati Balajee Agro Trading Company on July 12. In SEBI parlance, the issuance of an observation letter means the company can raise funds by launching its IPO within the next year.

Further, provisional data from NSE showed that domestic institutional investors (DII) were net sellers of shares worth Rs 331 crore, while foreign investors were net buyers of shares worth Rs 2,685 crore.

DIIs bought Rs 15,033 crore worth of shares and sold shares worth Rs 15,364 crore.

Meanwhile, FIIs purchased Rs 14,857 crore in shares and offloaded equities worth Rs 12,172 crore during the trading session on Monday.