Closing bell: Indices close at record high; Sensex gains 211 points, Nifty above 18560

Today, Indian economic indices closed record high with the Nifty above 18,560.

At close, the Sensex was up 211.16 points, or 0.34% at 62504.80, and the Nifty was up 50.00 points, or 0.27%, at 18562.75. About 2,024 shares have advanced, 1,458 shares declined, and 185 shares are unchanged. 

BPCL, Reliance Industries, Hero MotoCorp, Tata Consumer Products and SBI Life Insurance were among the major Nifty gainers, while losers included Hindalco Industries, JSW Steel, Apollo Hospitals, Tata Steel and Bharti Airtel.

Srikanth Subramanian, CEO, Kotak Cherry said, “Indian markets are defying global weakness and touching all time high. This is on back of renewed interest from FIIs as Indian decoupling story continues to play out. However, one must also realize that as we continue to see better growth rates than world, our valuations too are priced at those premiums. Even long term investors at this point should not betray discipline. One should ideally avoid any extreme movements and stick to the core asset allcoation that one has defined for oneself."

Oil and gas stocks are up 1.5%, while metal stocks are down 1%. All other sectoral indices ended in the green.

Lakshmi Iyer, CEO, Investment Advisory, Kotak Investment Advisors Limited said, "Sentiment and flows currently are acting as a strong catalyst for the markets which touched an all-time high. We are seeing domestic as also foreign investors being net buyers of equity aiding the momentum. Here on one needs to be balanced as most of the positives are in the prices for now. Incremental allocations to equities could be done in a staggered manner as opposed to lumpsum investments."

On Friday, Wall Street finished mostly lower.

Brent crude was trading 2.58 percent lower at USD 81.47 per barrel on the international oil market.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought shares worth Rs 369.08 crore on Friday, as per exchange data.