Nifty hits all-time high driven by auto, banking stocks

The National Stock Exchange benchmark - Nifty 50 index hit a record high on Tuesday powered by gains in banking, auto and financial services shares. The Nifty 50 index rose as much as 140 points to hit record high of 22,783.35 and Sensex rose as much as 387 points 75,097.

The fresh surge to record high for Nifty came as geo-political tensions eased between Iran and Israel eased amid strong earnings posted by Indian companies in march quarter, analysts said.

As of 2:14 pm, the Sensex was up 383 points at 75,058 and Nifty index advanced 123 points to 22,766.

Buying was visible across sectors as eleven of 15 major sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Auto index's over 2 per cent gain. Nifty Bank, PSU Bank, Private Bank, Financial Services, Realty, and Oil & Gas indices also rose between 0.7-2 per cent.

On the other hand, select IT, metal and pharma shares were facing a mild selling pressure.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing buying interest as nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.75 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.57 per cent.

Mahindra & Mahindra was top nifty gainer, the stock rose as much as 5.2 per cent to hit record high of Rs 2,169 after it launched compact sports utility vehicle XUV - 3XO starting at Rs 7.49 lakh.

IndusInd Bank, Power Grid, Shriram Finance, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Life, Axis Bank, Grasim and Bajaj Finserv also rose between 1.75-3.21 per cent.

On the flipside, Tech Mahindra, Dr Reddy's Labs, HCL Technologies, Tata Steel, Sun Pharma, LTI Mindtree, JSW Steel and Bharti Airtel were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was positive as 2,071 shares were advancing while 1,694 were declining on the BSE.