Sensex scales Mount 70k, Nifty tops 21,000; GTL Infra, Inox Wind jump up to 8%

Indian equity benchmarks continued their upward run for the second straight session in Monday's trade, led by gains in banks, financials and energy stocks. The 30-share BSE Sensex pack rose 223 points to hit a lifetime high of 70,048.90 while the broader NSE Nifty index moved 50 points higher to scale a fresh all-time peak of 21,019.80.

Broader market (small- and mid-cap shares) were up too as Nifty Midcap 100 rose 0.18 per cent and small-cap climbed 0.58 per cent. India VIX, fear index, surged 3.76 per cent to 12.94-level.

On the global front, Asian shares were mostly trading lower. Wall Street equities settled higher on Friday.

Back home, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought Indian shares worth Rs 3,632.30 crore on a net basis during the previous session. On the other hand, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs 434.02 crore.

13 out of the 15 sector gauges -- compiled by the NSE -- were trading in the green. Sub-indexes Nifty Bank, Nifty Financial Services and Nifty Oil & Gas were outperforming the NSE platform by rising as much as 0.30 per cent, 0.20 per cent and 0.75 per cent, respectively. However, Nifty Pharma and Nifty Healthcare slipped.

On the stock-specific front, Coal India was the top gainer in the Nifty pack as the stock jumped 1.42 per cent to trade at Rs 356. ONGC, UPL, IndusInd Bank and UltraTech Cement gained up to 1.38 per cent.

In contrast, Dr Reddy's, Asian Paints, Cipla, Sun Pharma and Apollo Hospitals among the top laggards.

The overall market breadth was positive as 2,219 shares were advancing while 835 were declining on BSE.

On the 30-share BSE index, Kotak Mahindra Bank, L&T, SBI, ITC, HCL Tech and TCS were among the top gainers.

Also, GTL Infrastructure, Inox Wind, Sandur Manganese, IFCI and Strides Pharma Science surged up to 7.96 per cent. On the flipside, Safari Industries (India), Adani Green Energy, KIOCL and Adani Energy Solutions tanked up to 4.67 per cent.

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