Sensex jumps 150 points to scale new heights, Nifty crosses 15,900; Asian Paints, Reliance Industries, NTPC propel indices

Mumbai: Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty scaled fresh intra-day records in opening trade on Monday, tracking gains in heavyweights Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank and HDFC. After touching a lifetime high of 53,126.73, the 30-share BSE index was trading 142.85 points or 0.27 percent higher at 53,067.89 in initial deals. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty was trading 42.25 points or 0.27 percent higher at 15,902.60. It touched a lifetime intra-day peak of 15,915.65 in the opening session. Asian Paints was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rising over 1 percent, followed by Dr Reddy’s, NTPC, Axis Bank, Sun Pharma, Kotak Bank, ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries. On the other hand, Titan, TCS, UltraTech Cement, Bharti Airtel and L&T were among the laggards. In the previous session, the 30-share index Sensex closed 226.04 points or 0.43 percent higher at record 52,925.04, and Nifty advanced 69.90 points or 0.44 percent to 15,860.35. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market as they offloaded shares worth Rs 678.84 crore on Friday, as per provisional exchange data. According to Binod Modi Head-Strategy at Reliance Securities, domestic markets look modestly good as of now. A sharp fall in daily caseload and satisfactory ramp up in vaccination process overshadowed concerns emerging from higher crude prices and weakening rupee, he said, adding that better-than-expected 4QFY21 earnings performance of companies has also supported the market’s uptick. Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo were trading with losses in mid-session deals. Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.17 percent lower at USD 75.25 per barrel.