The S&P BSE Sensex ended at a new high of 35,511 and the NSE index breached the 10,900 mark for the first time, as investors remained bullish after the GST Council decided to cut rates on 83 goods and services. Continued foreign fund inflows, encouraging quarterly results and a firm trend in other Asian bourses also boosted the trading sentiment.

After opening higher at 35,339.11, the Sensex surged to an intra-day high of 35,542.17. It finally ended higher by 251.29 points or 0.71 per cent at 35,511.58 surpassing its previous record closing of 35,260.29 hit yesterday. The index has now rallied 740.53 points in three straight sessions.

Similarly, the 50-share NSE Nifty closed up by 77.70 points or 0.72 per cent at 10,894.70, surpassing its previous life-time closing high of 10,817 hit yesterday. Intra-day, it touched an all-time high of 10,906.85, breaching the 10,900-mark for the first time.

It was the seventh week of gains in a row for the markets. The Sensex recorded a significant rise of 919.19 points or 2.65 per cent, while the Nifty gained 213.45 points or 1.99 per cent in the week.

Top five Sensex gainers were Adani Ports (+4.68%), YES Bank (+2.37%), ICICI Bank (+2.15%), State Bank of India (+2.08%) and TCS (+1.53%), while the major losers were Infosys (-0.82%), Sun Pharma (-0.74%), PowerGrid (-0.61%), Maruti (-0.4%) and ONGC (-0.23%).

All BSE sectoral indices ended in the positive zone. Among them, banking index gained the most by 1.52 per cent, realty 1.26 per cent, infrastructure 1.19 per cent and PSU 1.06 per cent.

“Markets were expecting some rationalisation in GST rates. Now, any good news with respect to filing taxes will definitely bring cheer to the market,” said Saurabh Jain, Assistant Vice-President of Research at SMC Global Securities.

FII buying

FIIs bought shares Rs 1,894.99 crore, while domstic institutional investors sold equities to the tune of Rs 657.46 crore yesterday, according to provisional data.

Asian shares

Asian stocks edged up to record highs on Friday, although losses on Wall Street slowed the advance, while worries over a possible US government shutdown weighed on the dollar. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.3 per cent to a record top. The index had climbed 1.2 per cent on the week, during which it rode a surge in global equities.

Wall Street fell on Thursday as losses in industrials and interest-rate sensitive sectors offset marginal gains in tech stocks.Utilities and real estate dipped 0.6 per cent and 1.0 per cent, respectively.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 97.84 points, or 0.37 per cent, to 26,017.81, the S&P 500 lost 4.53 points, or 0.16 per cent, to 2,798.03 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.23 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 7,296.05.

(With inputs from Agencies)

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