Sensex, Nifty scale new highs; auto stocks up

Mumbai, Jan 23  A day after the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a mega bond buying programme, a benchmark index of Indian equities markets Friday scaled a new peak of 29,408.73 points in the intra-day trade.

The new high of 29,408.73 points surpassed the previous record of 29,060.41 points reached in Thursday's trade.

In Friday's trade, healthy buying was seen in automobile, capital goods, banking, metal and healthcare sectors. However, consumer durables scrip dipped.

The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 29,189.45 points, ended trade at a new high of 29,278.84 points, up 272.82 points or 0.94 percent from the previous day's close at 29,006.02 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 29,408.73 points and a low of 29,165.56 points in the intra-day trade.

"The markets today opened higher and made new life-time high on the back of positive global cues," said Alex Mathews, head research, Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services.

"The global markets were up as the European Central Bank announced it will buy bonds worth 60 billion euros per month to support the economy. But higher level profit-booking was also witnessed on the domestic front due to overbought situation."

The S&P automobile index gained by 299.56 points, capital goods index surged by 221.86 points, banking index got augmented by 179.20 points, metal index moved up by 89.62 points and the healthcare index rose by 69.86 points.

However, consumer durables index was down 25.47 points.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also touched a new high of 8,866.40 points from its previous record of 8,774.15 points in Thursday's intra-day trade.

It closed the day's trade at 8,835.60 points -- up 74.20 points or 0.85 percent -- registering healthy gains.

The major Sensex gainers were Tata Power, up 6.86 percent at Rs.88.80; Tata Motors, up 3.81 percent at Rs.587.90; Bharti Airtel, up 3.72 percent at Rs.383.70; Cipla, up 3.15 percent at Rs.674.75; and Larsen and Toubro (L&T), up 2.58 percent at Rs.1,706.05.

The losers were Gail, down 1.80 percent at Rs.423.10; BHEL, down 1.67 percent at Rs.278.95; ONGC, down 1.09 percent at Rs.348.55; DrReddy's Lab, down 0.49 percent at Rs.3,344.85; and Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), down 0.44 percent at Rs.2,501.70.