Sensex, Nifty extend gains to hit fresh highs

Mumbai, January 23: Markets continued their record-setting run for yet another session on Tuesday. The stock markets NIFTY and SENSEX have moved past 11,000 and 200 points to 36,017 respectively for the first time in the early trade.

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 of 10,975.10 touched Monday.

The flagship BSE Sensex too surged 159.98 points, or 0.44 per cent, to trade at 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 a budget deal to reopen the US government and a firming trend at other Asian markets too bolstered trading sentiment s 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 percent, while Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.70 percent in their early deals.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended at new high in Monday’s trade, by rising 0.55 percent.