Indian equity indices reached life-time highs today due to strong performance by oil and gas stocks, information technology stocks and Reliance Industries.
However, it later gave up some of the gains, with the Nifty 50 ending at 21,853.80 points compared to the high of 22126.80 points hit at midday.
Overall, the Nifty ended 0.7% higher, while Sensex ended up 440.33 points (0.6%) higher at 72,085 points.
Several other indices – Nifty Metal, Nifty Oil and Gas, Nifty PSU Bank, Nifty Energy, Nifty Infrastructure, Nifty Pharma and Nifty Auto – also hit lifetime highs during intraday trading today.
Positive momentum was visible in early trade thanks to the investment-oriented budget and positive trends from overseas markets, eventually traversing into uncharted waters.
However, selling -- which started with banking and fast-moving consumer goods stocks -- soon dragged it back to terra firma.
Shares of Reliance Industries hit their lifetime high of Rs 2,930.60. This marks the third day of gains for the stock. The heavyweight had been trading in a band for the last two years.
Other power stocks included those of public sector companies, such as Bharat Petroleum -- up 10% -- and Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Coal India, Power Grid Corp of India and NTPC.
NBCC (India), also a government company, hit a lifetime high of Rs 169.95 on positive news from the budget.
Stocks of IT companies, which had been suffering for some time due to fears over poor demand and an AI 'takeover', were back in favor, including Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and Infosys.
On the other side, Paytm parent One97 Communications was locked in the 20% lower circuit for the second day, reacting to Reserve Bank of India's direction to its payments bank unit to not take further deposits after Feb 29.
With this, the Nifty 50 is up 2.4% this week, taking a break from the losing streak seen in the previous two weeks.