Benchmark Sensex surged past the 70,000-level for the first time in early trade on Monday and the broader Nifty crossed the 21,000-mark as equity market continued with its bullish momentum.

The key indices had touched their new lifetime highs on Friday after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the growth forecast for the current fiscal and kept policy rates unchanged.

The 30-share Sensex touched its all-time high of 70,048.90 points soon after opening and later marginally shed its gains to 69,958.13 points, which is a rise of 132.53 points or 0.19 per cent compared to Friday's closing level.

Reflecting similar trends, the 50-share Nifty climbed to its high of 21,019.80 points. Later, it was trading at 20,984.65 points, gaining 15.25 points or 0.07 per cent.

In the Sensex pack, 20 scrips were trading in the green while 10 were in the negative territory.

Among the Nifty constituents, 27 stocks gained while 22 declined in early trade.

V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said global and domestic cues favour continuation of the ongoing rally in the market despite high valuations.

"FIIs turning buyers, strong DII inflows, exuberant retail investors and a thriving IPO market supported by strong economic fundamentals can sustain the rally in the short run ignoring the high valuations," he said.

Foreign institutional investors are referred as FIIs and DII stands for domestic institutional investors.

On Friday, Sensex closed at 69,825.60 points and Nifty at 20,969.40 points. Nifty had gone past the 21,000-level in intra-day trade on Friday.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Asian markets witnessed mixed trends as Japan's Nikkei 225 gained while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell more than 2 per cent. US and European stocks had ended in the green on Friday.

Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) have turned bullish, investing Rs 26,505 crore into the domestic equities in the first six trading sessions of December.

Vijayakumar said that a significant trend in the market is the outperformance of the Bank Nifty over the Nifty.

"Last week while the Nifty appreciated by 3.5 per cent, Bank Nifty shot up by 5.5 per cent. This outperformance is likely to continue...," he added.

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