Sensex at new high, Nifty breaches 11,000 mark

Mumbai: The NSE Nifty today crossed the historical 11,000 level for the first time while the BSE Sensex hit another record high of 35,957.99 in opening trade after a rally in metal, oil & gas and IT stocks. Uninterrupted foreign fund inflows amid strong corporate earnings and positive global leads drove the benchmark indices to fresh lifetime highs. The 50-issue Nifty breached the historic 11,000 level by gaining 56.80 points, or 0.51 per cent, to trade at all-time high of 11,023.00. It bettered its previous intra-day high of10,975.10 touched yesterday.

The flagship BSE Sensex too surged 159.98 points, or0.44 per cent, to trade at a new record high of 35,957.99, breaking its previous record high of 35,827.70 reached in yesterday’s trade. The gauge rallied 1,026.99 points in the previous four record-setting sessions. Trading sentiment remained extremely bullish backed by sustained capital inflows by foreign funds and widespread buying by retail investors, driven by strong earnings by some more bluechip companies that helped key indices to scale new peaks, brokers said.

Moreover, record closing on Wall Street as lawmakers agreed on a budget deal to reopen the US government and a firming trend at other Asian markets too bolstered trading sentiments here, they added.

The best performers during initial trade were Axis Bank, Infosys, Reliance Industries, ONGC, Coal India, Tata Steel, Yes Bank, Bajaj Auto, SBI, ICICI Bank, Dr Reddy’s, Kotak Bank, HDFC Ltd, and Hero MotoCorp with gains of up to 2.16 percent. Among other Asian markets, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.88 per, Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.93 per cent, whileShanghai Composite Index gained 0.70 per cent in their early deals.    The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended at new high in yesterday’s trade, by rising 0.55 per cent.