Sensex ends above historic 65,000 mark; Nifty settles at record 19,322

Mumbai: Benchmark equity indices continued their rally on Monday, with the BSE Sensex ending above the 65,000 mark for the first time ever, propelled by a rally in global equities and persistent foreign fund inflows.

Hectic buying in index majors Reliance Industries, ITC and HDFC twins also added to the market momentum, traders said.

Rallying for the fourth straight session, the 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 486.49 points or 0.75 per cent to settle at its all-time closing high of 65,205.05. During the day, it rallied 581.79 points or 0.89 per cent to its lifetime intra-day high of 65,300.35.

The NSE Nifty climbed 133.50 points or 0.70 per cent to end at a record high of 19,322.55. In intra-day trade, the benchmark zoomed 156.05 points or 0.81 per cent to hit its all-time intra-day peak of 19,345.10.

Market benchmarks settled at record highs for the third straight session on Monday.

Reliance Industries was the top gainer in the Sensex chart, rising 2.53 per cent, followed by ITC, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, HDFC, UltraTech Cement, NTPC, HDFC Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Steel, Bajaj Finserv and ICICI Bank.

In contrast, Power Grid, Maruti, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, Nestle and Tata Motors were among the laggards, skidding up to 1.86 per cent.

In Asian markets, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong ended in the green.

Equity markets in Europe were trading in the positive territory.

The US markets ended significantly higher in the overnight trade on Friday.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.97 per cent to USD 76.14 a barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought equities worth Rs 6,397.13 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.

GST collections crossed Rs 1.60 lakh crore mark for the fourth time since the roll-out of the indirect tax regime, rising 12 per cent to over Rs 1.61 lakh crore in June, the Finance Ministry said on Saturday.

"Sentiments of investors are reinforced by positive domestic data and optimistic global cues. Global market was supported by resilient economic data, avoiding the possibility of a recession. India’s stock market trend was broad-based, owing to the outperformance from energy, financial, metal, and FMCG sectors," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.