The Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex touched a record high on Monday to close at 31,109.28 and the National Stock Exchange Nifty crossed 9,600-mark for the first time. Continuing its record-breaking streak from the last session on Friday, the Sensex went up 81 points while Nifty rose 95 points and closed at 9,604.90.
The Sensex had opened on a negative note and traded below the 31,000-mark briefly, but it bounced back 127.19 points up, surpassing its previous high of 31,028 that it recorded on Friday. It had touched 31,155.40 in Monday’s morning trade. The 50-share NSE index also breached the record it had set on Friday of 9,595.
On Monday, the healthcare sector took a hit after Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd reported a 14% fall in its March-quarter profit. While the stocks of Sun Pharma fell as much as 11%, Aurobindo Pharma went down by 3.67% to close at Rs 513.70 per share.
The stocks of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications also fell over 20%, two days after the company recorded a Rs 966-crore loss for the quarter that ended in March 2017. The loss for the 2016-2017 fiscal year stood at Rs 1,283 crore as against the net profit of Rs 660 crore in 2015-2016, the telecom operator said.
HDFC was the top performer on the Sensex, gaining around 3.3%, followed by Hindustan Unilever Limited (+3.07%), Power Grid (+2.76%) and ITC (+2.38%). On the NSE, Power Grid Corporation of India Limited performed the best by going up 3.83%, followed by Cipla (+3.49%), HDFC (+3.16) and Hindustan Unilever (+3.08). Besides Sun Pharma, Tech Mahindra (-11.44%), Adani Ports (-5.80%) and Bank of Baroda (-3.46%) did badly on Nifty.
Asian markets traded flat following the latest ballistic missile test conducted by North Korea.
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