New Delhi, Sep 14 (IANS): India has become the best performing large market in September with 4.2 per cent gains, says V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.

This move to record highs breaching the psychological 20000 mark on the Nifty has been achieved with an impressive 4.3 per cent rise in Bank Nifty, he said.

Since financials account for 32 per cent weightage in the Nifty, strength in financials, particularly the banks, can keep the Nifty resilient. More importantly, the valuations of banking stocks are even now fair. Strength in banking stocks can impart resilience to the market even though the overall market valuations are slowly rising beyond comfort levels, he added.

Inflation data from the US present a mixed picture. While the CPI inflation data for August has come at 3.7 per cent against expectations of 3.6 per cent, core inflation was on expected lines coming at 4.3 per cent. So the market thinking is that the Fed is likely to pause in September.

Vaishali Parekh, Vice President - Technical Research, Prabhudas Lilladher said Nifty once again maintained the 19950 zone and witnessed a decent gradual rise during the intraday session to close above the 20000 mark for the first time significantly improving the bias and sentiment anticipating for further rise in the coming days.

The broader markets also recovered significantly from the lows to bring relief to the market players and further upward move is anticipated. The support for the day is seen at 19950 levels while the resistance is seen at 20200 levels, Parekh said.

BSE Sensex is up 26 points at 67493 points on Thursday morning. Tata Steel is up more than 2 per cent.