Sensex closes at record level

The Sensex added 164.59 points at 20,465.30, a level never seen before. The index touched the day's high of 20,529.48 points and a low of 20,077.40 points.

The key-index had its intra-day peak of 20,498.11 points on December 13 last year.

In similar fashion, the National Stock Exchange index Nifty spurted by 35.05 points to 6,179.40, after touching the day's high of 6,197.00 and a low of 6,060.85 points, still below its record high levels. The Nifty set an intra-day peak of 6,185.40 points on December 13 and a closing peak of 6,159.30 points on December 12.

The market received major support from realty, bank, oil and gas, PSU, metal and healthcare stocks.

As the buying activity spread over a wide-front, the small cap index shot up by 205.90 points to 13,908.97 and mid cap index by 123.91 points to 10,058.94.

The realty segment index surged the most by 381.78 points to 13,419.67, followed by bank index by 360.18 points to 11,870.49. PSU index shot up by 140.43 points tp 10,773.91.

Oil and gas index rose by 110.24 points to 13,391.12, metal index by 99.36 points to 20,160.85, healthcare index by 55.86 points to 4,467.40, auto index by 44.56 points to 5,761.05 and FMCG index by 22.03 points at 2,397.10.