Final trade: Sensex, Nifty close at fresh record highs; Divi's Labs top Nifty gainer

Indian equities in a volatile session after clocking a fresh all-time high at early start to the week ended mildly higher. At the close, Sensex ended flat with minor gains of 0.028 per cent at 81,355.84, an over 550 point crash from the day's high. Similarly Nifty ended up by 0.005 per cent at 24,836.1. In intraday trade, Nifty closed in on 25,000 levels but at the close ended with a cut of 164 points from the all-time high recorded today.  Consequently, both indices recorded their fresh closing levels today on the back of gains in the Nifty Bank.

Prashanth Tapse, Senior VP (Research), Mehta Equities held that while benchmark indices hit fresh intra-day life-time highs and Nifty almost touched the 25k mark, most of the gains were lost and markets ended end off their highs amid profit-taking in IT and telecom stocks. Going ahead, global market direction and corporate earnings will dictate the trend.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Financial Services on the markets today said, "An ease in the US personal consumption expenditure to 2.5% and the subsequent drop in the US 10-year yield have fuelled optimism that the Fed might cut rates in September, leading to a global rally. However, profit-booking was triggered in the domestic market given trading in the overbought territory and closed flat. Policy meeting is scheduled for the Fed, BOJ and BOE this week, and investors are closely monitoring the developments. It is anticipated that the BOE may implement a 25-bps rate cut in response to easing inflation."

Sectorally PSU Bank, Media and Realty stole the limelight with gains of up to 2.25 per cent, while the laggards during today's trade were IT and FMCG stocks.

Indian Bank reported decent Q1 with net profit rising 41 per cent on-year to Rs 2,403 crore, NII at the lender also rose 8.3 per cent during the reporting quarter to Rs 6,718 crore.