New Delhi, Sep 14: According to VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist, of Geojit Financial Services, India has emerged as the top-performing major market with an impressive gain of 4.2% in September. This surge to record highs has taken the benchmark index Nifty 50 past the psychologically important 20,000 mark, mainly due to the strength in banking stocks. Given that the weightage of financials in Nifty is 32%, the strong performance of the banking sector has a significant impact on the elasticity of the index. Worth noting is that banking stocks continue to maintain reasonable valuations, even as overall market valuations are slowly moving towards levels that raise concerns.

On the global front, inflation data coming from the United States painted a mixed picture. While the consumer price index (CPI) for August rose above expectations to 3.7%, core inflation remained in line with expectations at 4.3%. Due to this, the market has speculated that the Federal Reserve may adopt a cautious stance in September. Vaishali Parekh, vice president of technical research at Prabhudas Lilladher, said Nifty has consistently maintained the 19,950 level, experiencing a gradual rise during intraday sessions which culminated in a significant close above the 20,000 milestone. This development has significantly improved the market sentiment and it is expected to gain further momentum in the coming days.

Moreover, the broader market has also shown resilience, especially bouncing back from earlier lows, providing much-needed relief to investors. According to Parekh, this positive trend is expected to continue, with support for the day estimated at 19,950 points, while resistance is estimated at 20,200 levels. Amidst these market movements, BSE Sensex has increased by 26 points to reach 67,493 points by Thursday morning. Notably, Tata Steel has registered a rise of over 2%, which has contributed to the market rally.