Sensex, Nifty hit new record highs on FII inflows

The 50-share NSE index Nifty regained the psychological 7,800-level for the first time since July 25 by gaining 66.05 points to trade at 7,857.75.

Similarly, the 30-share BSE index Sensex surged 226.65 points to trade at 26,329.88 surpassing its earlier high of 26,300.17 (intra-day) reached on July 25.

Rajesh Agarwal, Head-Eastern Financiers, said in a report: “With the result season now over, the markets will take cues from important data announcements such as bank loan growth, bank deposit growth and foreign reserves data. The markets will also be impacted to an extent by the macroeconomic developments on the global front. Renewed scuffle in the Middle East and Ukraine continue to remain causes for concern. Investors are expected to remain cautious to some extent as they are trying to gauge the events unfolding in the Middle East and Eastern Ukraine. Overall, we expect markets to maintain an upmove with its fair share of volatility induced by intermittent profit-booking.”

Barring FMCG and IT, all other BSE sectoral indices were trading in the green. Among them, capital goods, banking and oil & gas indices were the star-performers and were up 2.6 per cent, 2.07 per cent and 2.06 per cent, respectively. On the other hand, FMCG index was down 0.57 per cent and IT 0.43 per cent.

Axis Bank, Tata Motors, BHEL, Tata Power and L&T were the top five Sensex gainers, while the top five losers were ITC, Infosys, HDFC, TCS and M&M.

Meanwhile, Foreign Portfolio Investors bought shares worth Rs. 625.18 crore in the previous session, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.

European stocks rose as Ukraine and Russia met for discussions. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rallied 1.1 per cent to 333.31 at 8.10 a.m. in London after advancing 1.5 per cent last week. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures added 0.4 per cent, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell below 0.1 per cent.