Sensex, Nifty touch record highs again

For the eighth straight day, a benchmark index of Indian equities markets touched a record high, closing 105 points up.

Wednesday's new high surpassed the 22,485.77 points mark reached the previous day.

The new intra-day high touched by the 30-scrip S&P Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) came after the Election Commission (EC) allowed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to announce new bank licences before the outcome of the general elections to be held between April and May.

Another factor that buoyed the market was the RBI's decision Tuesday to keep key interest rates unchanged, although this was widely expected by the markets.

On Wednesday, the 30-scrip Sensex, which opened at 22,550.58 points, closed at 22,551.49 points, up 105.05 points or 0.47 percent from its previous day's close at 22,446.44 points.

It touched a high of 22,592.10 points and a low of 22,473.46 points intra-day.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) too touched a new high of 6,763.50 points before closing trade at 6,752.55 points - up 31.50 points or 0.47 percent.

Healthy buying was observed in healthcare, capital goods, oil and gas, bank and automobile stocks. However, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and metal scrip came under sustained selling pressure in the day's trade.

The S&P BSE healthcare index gained 158.67 points, capital goods index was up 141.60 points, oil and gas index rose 137.36 points, bank index increased by 134.16 points and automobile index was up 126.07 points.

However, the FMCG index slipped by 105.01 points, followed by metal index, down 50.87 points.

The major Sensex gainers were: Bharti Airtel, up 3.34 percent at Rs.326.10; Tata Motors, up 2.62 percent at Rs.413.55, State Bank of India (SBI), up 2.06 percent at Rs.1,933.50, Cipla, up 2.00 percent at Rs.389.80; and ONGC, up 1.96 percent at Rs.329.95.

The main losers were: ITC, down 2.31 percent at Rs.344.25; Hindalco Inds, down 1.45 percent at Rs.136.10; Sesa Sterlite, down 1.41 points at Rs.189.15; HDFC Bank, down 1.02 points at Rs.730.55; and Hindustan Unilever, down 0.99 percent at Rs.595.65.

Among the Asian markets, Japan's Nikkei closed 1.04 percent up and Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed 0.34 percent higher. China's Shanghai Composite Index rose by 0.56 percent.

In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was trading 0.03 percent down at closing bell here. But Germany's DAX Index was up 0.09 percent, while the French CAC 40 Index was down 0.05 percent.