Creating history, the Sensex today surpassed the 25,000-mark on trends indicating a clear majority for Narendra Modi-led BJP in Lok Sabha polls before retreating on massive profit-booking to end at 24,121.74, a record close.
The 30-share index, which had a solid run in the past few days, surged 1,470 points to hit a new life-time high of 25,375.63 in early trade fuelled by hopes that BJP government would fast-track reforms and accelerate economic activity.
However, the index started losing momentum later and briefly slipped into negative territory to touch low of 23,873.16. Frittering away significant portion of its gain on profit booking, the Sensex nevertheless concluded at a new closing peak of 24,121.74, a gain of 216.14 points or 0.90 per cent. This surpasses its closing of 23,905.60 on Thursday.
In terms of market capitalisation, investor wealth rose by a whopping Rs 1 lakh crore to end at Rs 80.64 lakh crore.
"While a lot of the positives are already factored in by the markets, now everyone will be watching out for actual steps to be taken by the government starting with Budget and Tax Reforms etc," said Nirakar Pradhan, Chief Investment Officer, Future Generali India Life Insurance.
The 50-share NSE Nifty crossed the key 7,500-mark to hit an all-time intra-day high of 7,563.50. However, profit-booking at record levels wiped off most of early gains to close at 7,203 -- 79.85 points, or 1.12 per cent higher.
In the forex market, the rupee climbed to 11-month high of 58.62 against the US dollar amid continued foreign fund inflows into the stock markets. It was last trading at 58.93.
Among the 30-Sensex components, SBI (5.93 pc), HDFC Bank (2.11 pc), ICICI Bank (5.15 pc) Axis Bank (5.60 pc), Larsen and Toubro (3.52 pc), Reliance Industries (2.59 pc), ONGC (1.83 pc) and NTPC (2.01 pc) clocked smart gains.
Maruti Suzuki (1.76 pc), BHEL (5.25 pc), Coal India (1.45 pc), Bharti Airtel (3.33 pc), Tata Power (3.72 pc) and Tata Motors (2.39 pc) were also among prominent gainers. Sesa Sterlite was the best performer with 11 per cent gain.
Sectorally, the BSE realty index gained the most among the BSE sectoral indices, by rising 5.97 per cent, followed by Banking index (4.39 pc) and PSU index (3.60 pc).
The Sensex had surged over 1,560 points in the past five trading sessions after exit polls showed leads for the BJP-led NDA.
