Markets end at record highs: Sensex above 31,700

Nifty crosses 9,750-mark; Bharti Airtel, TCS, Wipro, Lupin and Coal India gained the most on BSE Sensex

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

Bulls tightened their grip on the market with frontline indices ending at all time closing high backed by surge in technology, telecom and realty stocks.

S&P BSE Sensex ended over 31,700 for the first time ever. The index settled at new closing high of at 31,715, up 355 points for the day.

Nifty50, on the other hand, also achieved new milestone even after NSE remained shut trading in cash and F&O segment for 3 hours in the morning trade due to a technical glitch.

It later resumed trading at 12:30 pm. The index settled at fresh closing milestone of 9,763, up 97 points.

In intra-day trade, Sensex rose as much as 408 points to hit the record high of 31,768, surpassing its previous milestone of 31,522 hit on June 22 while Nifty gained as much as 116 points to hit 9772, surpassing the last high of 9,709 hit on June 6.

It's been an exceptional day for the equity markets as the benchmarks gained nearly 1% despite technical glitch at the NSE.

Mostly sectoral indices participated in the move and posted decent gains. Surprisingly, IT majors also witnessed sharp recovery and made significant contribution. Such buoyancy ahead of the earnings season indicates that markets are in the strong hand and participants are anticipating much higher levels ahead, said  Jayant Manglik, President, Retail Distribution, Religare Securities.

"Our target position of 10,000 in Nifty is intact but finding trade at current level requires extra efforts. For fresh trades, we suggest waiting for some consolidation or dip in stocks and preferring hedged positions," he added.

Buzzing stocks

Bharti Airtel, TCS, Wipro, Lupin and Coal India gained the most on BSE Sensex while M&M, ITC, and HUL lost the most on the index.

Shares of IDFC and Shriram Group of companies fell by up to 7.4% today after they agreed to merge and create the largest retail-focused bank in the country.

IDFC's scrip went down by 5.8% while IDFC Bank also fell by 3.32% but later recovered the losses and settled 0.6% higher. Meanwhile shares of Shriram Transport Finance tanked 7.39% at intraday to end over 3% low and Shriram City Union Finance tumbled 6.4%.

Bharti Airtel, Reliance Industries and Maruti Suzuki were among the Sensex stocks that hit their respective 52-week highs on BSE on Monday in intra-day trade after a strong rally in equities.

Bharti Airtel has rallied 5% to Rs 405, its highest level since August 2015 on BSE. The telecom services provider outperformed the market by gaining 33% as compared to 19% rise in the S&P BSE Sensex, so far in 2017.

Reliance Communications gained 6.4% after it presented a long-term debt reduction plan to lenders, which includes sale of real estate, under-sea cable assets and its DTH business but later pared gains to end flat.

Divis Labs ended nearly 8% higher after USFDA lifts import alert from VIshakapatnam facility.

AU Small Finance Bank was trading at Rs 536, a 50% premium over its initial public offer price of Rs 358 on its debut today.

NSE shuts for three hours due to tech glitch

Trading was disrupted at India's National Stock Exchange on Monday morning, after price quotations for individual stocks and indexes failed to update. After a snag of about three hours, the exchange resumed trading, at 12:30 pm.

"Due to technical reasons in the cash market, trading has been stopped in cash and F&O segment of the NSE," the exchange had said in a statement.

The exchange had also said that in the F&O segment, members would be given a 15-minute window to cancel their outstanding orders and the window was to be available from 12:15 pm - 12:29 pm.

Global markets

World stock markets rallied on Monday and the US dollar hit a two-month high against the yen as the latest US jobs data gave investors greater confidence in the strength of the economy.

Focus was already turning to Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen's semi-annual testimony on monetary policy and a meeting of Canada's central bank on Wednesday for the latest policy signals from the world's major central banks.

European stock markets followed Asia higher, with blue-chip stock markets in London, Paris and Frankfurt up 0.2 to 0.5% in early Monday trade.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advanced 0.4% while Japan's Nikkei rose 0.8% to a one-week high helped by weakness in the Japanese currency.

US stock futures also firmed, suggesting Wall Street shares could extend gains made after the US jobs data.