Diwali cheers for markets: Sensex hits record high, Nifty goes beyond 10,000 mark

It's clearly an early Diwali for key indices as firecrackers bursted on Dalal street when the benchmark BSE Sensex and the broader Nifty climbed to new life-time highs of 32,687.32 and 10,242.45 points, respectively, in opening session on the back of gains in banking, FMCG, auto and oil and gas stocks on Monday.

Uninterrupted buying by domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bolstered the trading sentiment, traders said. The rally came on the back of widespread gains led by metal, auto, FMCG, banking and oil & gas stocks.

Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries was trading higher by 0.43 per cent at Rs 880.50 after the company on Friday reported a 12.5 per cent jump in its September quarter net profit.

Meanwhile, even as Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) sold one of its three shale gas assets at about one-third of the purchase price, the company executives said that the deal was not much of “gain or loss” as the holding costs were similar to the selling price.

Earlier this month, Mukesh Ambani-promoted firm said that Reliance Marcellus II, a subsidiary of Reliance Holdings USA has divested all of its interest in the upstream shale gas assets in north-eastern and central Pennsylvania, which were operated by Carrizo Oil & Gas, for a consideration of $126 million. Seven years ago, RIL had spent around $392 million to acquire the assets.

However, V Srikanth, joint chief financial officer of RIL, when asked about the loss incurred on selling the asset, said that the ‘holding cost’ of the asset on books was similar to the cost at which it was sold.

The 30-share Sensex soared 254.63 points, or 0.78 per cent to scale a new high of 32,687.32, breaking its previous intra-day record of 32,686.48 hit on August 2. The 50-share NSE Nifty too spurted by 75 points, or 0.73 per cent to scale a fresh life-time high of 10,242.45, surpassing its previous intra-day record of 10,191.90 touched in Friday.

Major gainers were Cipla, Tata Motors, Bharti Airtel, Hindustan Unilever, M&M, Power Grid, Dr Reddy's, Tata Steel, Bajaj Auto, Kotak Bank, ITC Ltd, Asian Paint and L&T, rising by up to 2.07 per cent. A firming trend at other Asian markets as investors tracked another positive lead from Wall Street, influenced the sentiment. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was trading higher by 0.94 per cent, while Shanghai Composite rose 0.14 per cent in late morning trade. Japan's Nikkei too was up 0.63 per cent. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.13 per cent higher on Friday.