Sensex touches all-time highs of 38,920.14 points; IT, energy drive gains

Sensex soared to record highs on Tuesday, aided by energy and IT shares and global markets cues after the United States and Mexico agreed to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement. Hindalco, Vedanta Ltd, Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, and UltraTech Cement helped the Nifty index to stay in the positive territory. NTPC and Coal India shares too rose over 1 percent. Reliance Industries Ltd rose over 1 per cent to a life high of Rs  1,305, while Coal India stock rose over 2.25 percent to its highest in three months. Healthy buying in metal, auto and IT stocks as factors which pushed the key indices higher.
 
Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infibeam, KPIT and HCL Tech traded higher during the intra-day trade. BSE Sensex touched the day's high of 38,920.14 points after opening at 38814.76 points. The index closed yesterday at 38,694.11 points. 
 
NSE Nifty 50 has also risen to record high levels over a couple of week after the corporate sector reported good corporate earnings. Benchmark Nifty index was trading at 11,738.10 points at 2.20 pm. However, during the afternoon trade some negative trends were seen in the Nifty index, as 20 stocks advanced against the 30 stocks that declined. 
 
IT and Pharma stocks are doing well on strong dollar, which gained against the Yen after the US-Mexico deal boosted appetite for riskier assets.  GAIL, YES Bank, Hindustan Petroleum, Eicher Motors, SBI were the laggards in the market. MSCI`s Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbing 0.6 percent for a second straight day, according to a Reuters report.