Sensex, Nifty End At Record Highs Fuelled By Rally In IT Shares

The Indian equity benchmarks closed at all-time highs on Thursday fuelled by a rally in information technology shares after they posted strong earnings in first quarter of the current financial year. The Sensex rose as much as 362 points to hit an all-time high of 53,266.12 and Nifty 50 index moved above its important psychological level of 15,950 for the first time to hit record high of 15,952. IT shares witnessed strong buying interest after the sector major Infosys raised its full year revenue guidance to 14-16 per cent raising.

The Sensex advanced 255 points or 0.48 per cent to close at record high of 53,159 and Nifty 50 index jumped 70 points to close at an all-time high of 15,924.

Results from Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, with solid outlooks, augur well for the industry and can invite further investments, V K Vijayakumar, chief Investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said in a note.

Seven of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty IT index's over 1 per cent gain to close at record high. Nifty Bank, Financial Services, Metal, Private Bank, and Realty indices also closed higher.

On the other hand Nifty Auto and PSU Bank indices closed lower.

Mid- and small-cap shares also witnessed buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.48 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index climbed 1 per cent.

Among the individual shares, L&T Technology Services rose as much as 16 per cent hit record high of Rs 3,366 after it reported June quarter earnings. L&T Technology Services' net profit in the first quarter of current financial year jumped 84 per cent to Rs 216 crore compared with Rs 117 crore during the same quarter last year. Its revenue from operations advanced 17 per cent to Rs 1,518 crore as against Rs 1,295 crore in the year ago period.

Larsen & Toubro was among the top Nifty gainers, the stock climbed nearly 4 per cent to close at Rs 1,601 after its subsidiary L&T Technology Services reported strong June quarter earnings.

HCL Technologies, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Hindalco, UPL, HDFC Bank and ITC also rose between 1-4 per cent.

On the flipside, ONGC, Eicher Motors, Bharti Airtel, Grasim Industries, Coal India, Britannia Industries, Sun Pharma, Titan, Indian Oil and NTPC were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was neutral as 1,665 shares ended higher while 1,571 closed lower on the BSE.