Sensex hits new record of 30,774; Nifty tops 9,500

Benchmark Sensex zoomed 472 points to a fresh lifetime high of 30,774.14 in pre-close trade on Thursday, led by a rally in capital goods, banking, IT, realty and auto counters.

The 30-share index broke its previous record of 30,712.35 (intra-day) reached on May 19.

The broader Nifty too regained the psychologically key 9,500-level, rallying by 159.20 points, or 1.70 per cent, to trade at 9,519.75.

Brokers said besides positive cues from global markets, heavy-short covering by speculators, today being the last session of May expiry in the derivatives segment, helped the bourses scale new highs.

Major gainers in the Sensex pack were L&T (5.01 per cent), ICICI Bank (3.57 per cent), Infosys (3.09 per cent), GAIL (3.05 per cent), HDFC Bank (2.96 per cent), TCS (2.44 per cent), SBI (2.42 per cent), Asian Paints (2.23 per cent),Wipro (2.10 per cent), Bajaj Auto (1.89 per cent) and Maruti  Suzuki (1.80 per cent).

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), after remaining sellers for the past few sessions, bought shares worth a net Rs 81.88 crore in yesterday's trade, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges.