Stocks today went into the unexplored territory as benchmarks Sensex and Nifty closed at life highs, mainly because of some fag-end buying by participants.
The 30-share Sensex was up for the second straight session, hitting 34,010.61, a fresh closing high -- with a gain of 70.31 points, or 0.21 per cent. This was its highest close since Friday's 33,940.30. It had risen 184.10 points in the previous session on Friday.
For the 50-share Nifty, the close was a fresh peak at 10,531.50, up 38.50 points, or 0.37 per cent, dismantling its previous record of 10,493 reached on Friday. It was all-time intra-day high for both the benchmarks too.
Mid-cap and small-cap indices continued to be on investors' radar.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 107.87 crore while the buying tally for domestic institutional investors (DIIs) was Rs 371.53 crore on Friday, provisional data showed.
"Market started off range bound as investors' participation remained low due to holiday season while stock specific action in telecom, pharma and metal towards the close raised the indices to a new high. Mid and small cap outperformed on expectation of improvement in rural demand supported by continued government reforms," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services.
There were also signs of speculators rushing to cover their short positions ahead of this year's last expiry in the derivatives segment on Thursday.
Blue chips such as Bharti Airtel, Sun Pharma and Yes Bank, climbed up to 2.59 per cent.
Reliance Communications made waves with a sharp rise of 30.78 per cent after the company announced yet another debt revival plan claiming full debt resolution by March. Reliance Industries rose 1.03 per cent, Reliance Capital 7.02 per cent and Reliance Power 3.85 per cent.
Telecom, realty, metal and healthcare made gains of up to 2.28 per cent.
Broader markets stood out as the mid-cap index rose for the eighth straight session, this time 0.76 per cent, ending at a record. The small-cap index too ruled high for the seventh session, beating the Sensex with a gain of 0.64 per cent.
