Opening Bell: Sensex opens at record high, Nifty hits 13,000 for the first time; banks, metals lead

The Indian equity benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty, opened at record high levels on Tuesday led by buying across the board, tracking an upbeat global market.

At 9:15 am, the Sensex opened 0.60 percent, or 264.04 points, higher at 44,341.19, while the Nifty50 index opened at 13,002.60, up 76.15 points, or 0.59 percent.

Broader markets outperformed the benchmarks with Nifty Smallcap100 and Nifty Midcap100 indices up 1 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.

Rally in banking heavyweights lifted Nifty Bank more than 1 percent.

All the sectoral indices traded in the green with Nifty Private Bank, Nifty Metal, Nifty Pharma and Nifty Auto gaining the most.

Adani Ports & SEZ, Maruti Suzuki, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and PowerGrid Corporation were the Nifty50 top gainers, while Bajaj Finance, HDFC Life Insurance, HDFC, Nestle India and UltraTech Cement were the top index losers.

The share price of Reliance Industries gained after the company said its subsidiary Jio Platforms received the subscription amount of Rs 33,737 crore from Google International LLC for a 7.73 percent stake.

Coal India stock price gained over 1 percent after the company announced that it will increase non-coking coal price by Rs 10 per tonne effective December 1.

Globally, Asian shares climbed on Tuesday as news US President-elect Joe Biden was given the go-ahead to begin his White House transition added to an already brighter mood from progress made on COVID-19 vaccine and the prospects for a speedy global economic revival, Reuters reported.