Sensex, Nifty End At Record Highs; Bharti Airtel Surges 5%

Indian shares extended their record breaking rally on Monday with both the BSE Sensex and NSE benchmark Nifty closing at record highs. The Sensex surged 200.95 points or 0.62 per cent at 32,633.64 while the Nifty settled 63.40 points higher at 10,230.85. Gains in the market were led by pharma, metal and FMCG stocks. Data on Friday showed merchandise exports surged in September, pushing the trade deficit to a seven-month low.

Trade deficit narrowed to $8.98 billion in September, from $11.64 billion in August, as merchandise exports grew about 26 percent from a year ago.

The rupee gained for a sixth consecutive session, partly as inflows into debt markets remained strong, rising to as much as 64.69 per dollar, its strongest since September 21.

"On a macro front, economic data released in the last week or so came in fairly positive," said Shibani Kurian, senior vice president and head of equity research at Kotak Mutual Fund.

"Inflation data was encouraging, while the trade deficit data is favourable than what we saw last month."

Consumer inflation in September held steady from the prior month, while industrial output grew at a nine-month high of 4.3 percent in August, government data showed last week.

During intraday trade the Sensex climbed as much as 0.79 percent to a life-high of 32,687.32, a milestone it last touched on Aug. 2. The broader Nifty rose as much as 0.74 percent to 10,242.95. It had touched an all-time high on Friday.

Among Nifty stocks, Bharti Airtel was the top gainer, up 5.20 per cent followed by Bharti Infratel, Vedanta, Mahindra & Mahindra and Bosch, which rose between 2.9-4.8 per cent.

Oil-to-retail giant Reliance Industries Ltd climbed as much as 1.8 percent to touch a fresh record high of Rs 892 before settling almost flat at Rs 876.80.

Higher margins from Reliance's core refining and petrochemical businesses helped push September-quarter profit higher, while investors cheered the management's optimism on the prospects of its Jio telecoms unit.

(With inputs from Reuters)