Nifty hits another life high; banking, IT stocks gain

The NSE benchmark Nifty ended with tiny gains after a lacklustre and range-bound session of trade but still managed to hit another record closing high.
The market opened positive and unabated buying in banking, pharma and IT lifted by good corporate results led the index to mark day's all time high at 11,110.10 before turning choppy as investors opted for profit-booking amid bouts of short-covering ahead of F&O derivative expiry for January series due tomorrow.
Overseas, European shares declined while Asian shares settled on a mixed note as investors kept an eye on political developments.
Most US stocks gained yesterday, with market focus shifting from politics to corporate earnings after a government shutdown came to an end on Monday.

The NSE Nifty hit a record intra-day high of 11,110.10, before finishing at 11,086.00, marginally up 2.30 points, or 0.02 per cent. It bettered its previous closing high of 11,083.70 reached in yesterday's trade.
It saw an intra-day movement of about 63.95 points.

On the sectoral front, PSU bank rose by 3.49 per cent, IT 1.54 per cent, pharma 0.61 per cent, FMCG 0.46 per cent and finance service 0.15 per cent.
However, metal dropped by 1.72 per cent, private bank 0.77 per cent, energy 0.63 per cent, auto 0.61 per cent and media 0.33 per cent.
Major index gainers were SBI, Gail, Tech Mahindra, Adani Ports and TCS.

Losers were Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, Eicher Motors and Hindalco.
The market breadth, indicating its overall health, was in favour of losers. On the NSE, 542 stocks advanced, 1,249 declined and 65 remained unchanged.
Total securities that hit their price bands were 180.
Turnover in the cash segment fell to Rs 42,328.64 crore from Rs 42,482.86 crore yesterday.
A total of 17,392.49 lakh shares changed hands in 13,114,055 trades. The market capitalisation of listed firms on NSE stood at Rs 1,54,25,906 crore.