MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Sensex and the Nifty briefly hit record highs on Monday on the back of continued strong foreign buying in blue chips such as HDFC Bank, but were flat in trade soon afterwards on profit-taking and because of falls in regional shares.
The Sensex all-time high of 22,005.54 points marked its third consecutive record high in as many sessions, while the Nifty hit a second consecutive milestone at 6,545.10 points.
Foreign investors posted on Friday their biggest daily purchases since December 9, or a net 25.77 billion rupees. That marked a 16th consecutive buying session for a net total of about $1.4 billion.
However, both the Sensex and Nifty edged lower after hitting their respective record highs, tracking a slide in Asian shares on the back of disappointing Chinese trade data and uncertainty over the crisis in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Indulal PM; Editing by Rafael Nam)