Sensex, Nifty reach new record highs in early trade

Benchmark equity indices Sensex and Nifty hit their fresh record high levels in early trade on Thursday after retail inflation slipped to one-year low in May along with buying in IT stocks.

The 30-share BSE Sensex jumped 538.89 points to hit its lifetime peak of 77,145.46. The NSE Nifty climbed 158.1 points to its record peak of 23,481.05.

Among the 30 Sensex companies, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Nestle, Titan, HCL Technologies, Bajaj Finance, Infosys, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and Bajaj Finserv were the biggest gainers.

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Hindustan Unilever and Power Grid were the laggards.

In Asian markets, Seoul and Hong Kong quoted higher while Tokyo and Shanghai traded lower.

US markets ended mostly with gains.

Retail inflation continued its downward slide to reach a one-year low of 4.75 per cent in May due to a marginal decline of prices in the food basket and remained within the Reserve Bank's comfort zone of below 6 per cent, according to government data released on Wednesday.

"There is good news on the inflation front, both in the US and in India. The takeaway from the inflation numbers is that the disinflation process is well on track. From the market perspective, this is positive news, particularly for banking stocks," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude declined 0.36 per cent to USD 82.30 a barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought equities worth Rs 426.63 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data.