Sensex hits fresh all-time high in early trade, scales past 31,600; short-covering seen

Mumbai: The benchmark Sensex soared 242 points in early Monday trade to edge past the 31,600-mark and hit an all-time high of 31,602.50 after quarterly corporate earnings optimism gave domestic institutional and retail investors much hope to go in for fresh bets. Also, gains in other Asian indices too helped local equities gain strength in early trade. Blue-chip TCS is scheduled to announce its quarterly results on 13 July. [caption id=“attachment_2415832” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] After opening strong, the 30-share index rose further by 242 points, or 0.74 percent, to hit a new peak of 31,602.50, breaking its previous life-time high (intra-day) of 31,522.87 reached on 22 June. The gauge had shed 8.71 points on Friday. All sectoral indices led by technology, IT, realty, PSU, healthcare and bank were in the green, gaining up to 1.58 percent. The data for the 50-share NSE Nifty, however, was not available as stock rates did not update due to a technical glitch. Covering-up of short positions helped lift the index too. A mixed trend at other Asian bourses following a rally on Wall Street on Friday on the back of forecast-busting US jobs data cheered investors here. Major gainers were Bharti Airtel, TCS, Lupin, Sun Pharma and Wipro, surging by up to 3.73 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng firmed up 0.95 percent while Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.68 per cent. Shanghai Composite, however, fell 0.39 percent in early trade today. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.44 percent higher on Friday.