The Sensex and Nifty carried forward their gains from the last trading session and scaled new highs in trade today on the back of higher Asian markets tracking US stocks. The Sensex has gained 1.6% or 540 points since the beginning of this year. The Nifty is up 177 points or 1.7% during the same period.

While the Sensex hit an all-time high of 34,356, Nifty was trading above 10,600 for the first time ever, rising more than 50 points from Friday’s close.

BSE midcap and small cap indices led the surge rising 156 and 136 points, respectively

Pharma and banking stocks gained the most among the 19 BSE sectoral indexes rising 292 points and 201 points, respectively.

Among pharma stocks, SMS Pharmaceuticals (8.23%), Wockhardt Pharma (7.16%) and Kopran 5.59% were the top gainers on BSE healthcare index

Bank Nifty too rose 136 points to 25,728 level. Of 50 Nifty stocks, 45 were in trading the green.

On the Sensex, 28 stocks were in green with Bharti Airtel (2.78%) and Asian Paint (0.32%) being the sole losers. Sun Pharma (3.16%), YES Bank (1.61%) and L&T (1.19%) were top gainers on the Sensex.

Jindal Steel (8.61%), Sobha Developers (8.28%) and Wockhardt Pharma (6.20%) were the top gainers on BSE.

Market breadth is positive with 1,633 stocks rising against 580 falling on BSE.

Meanwhile, Tech Mahindra hits a fresh 52-week high of 538.80 on the BSE. The stock was trading 2.43% or 12.75 points higher to 536 level in early trade.

The rupee opened at 63.33 to the dollar versus its previous close of 63.375.

Meanwhile, real estate developer Sobha Ltd rose as much as 14.8 per cent to its highest since March 12, 2008 after the company reported a 52 percent rise in sales volume and 92 percent rise in total sales value for December-quarter compared to the same period an year ago.

The firm logged highest ever quarterly sales performance in terms of value and average realisation in the quarter.

On Friday, market marked record closing highs, posting their fifth consecutive weekly gain, as financials and metal stocks rose tracking global markets on strong economic data.

Sensex and Nifty closed at all time high on Friday at 34,153.85 and 10,558.85, respectively.

Global markets

Asian shares neared all-time peaks on Monday after Wall Street boasted its best start to a year in over a decade, with brisk economic growth and benign inflation proving a potent cocktail for risk appetite.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.1 percent having climbed 3.1 percent last week, its strongest performance in six months.

At 587.99 the index is within spitting distance of the record top of 591.50 hit in November 2007.

Australian stocks gained 0.3 percent to notch another decade summit, while South Korea rose 0.1 percent. Japan’s Nikkei was closed for a holiday but touched its highest since 1992 last week.

In Europe, markets closed higher with FTSE100 notching record high as investors’ monitored Eurozone inflation data and US non-farm payrolls on Friday. Auto stocks led the gains.

Wall Street has already enjoyed its best start to a year in more than a decade, with the Dow up 2.3 percent last week and the S&P 500 2.6 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq led the charge with a rise of 3.4 percent.