The markets closed strong on Thursday with the benchmark index soaring 1.3% to close the day at 17,150 levels. In the intraday dealings, the 30-share index performed in a range of 17,018-17,188 levels.

Nifty hit a record high of 5,016 levels. The 50-share index ended the perky day at 5,000 after gaining 1.2 per cent. NSE Nifty took 205 trading sessions to made last 1,000 points.

During the flight from 4,000 to 5,000 levels, Foreign Institutional Investors pumped in $10.75 billion whereas Mutual Funds inducted $1.26 billion.

Asian markets also ended on the strong note with Japan’s Nikkei and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained more than 2.4% each.

Rajesh Jain, Director & CEO, Pranav Securities stated, “Markets continues to move on a strong momentum, liquidity inflows continue to be strong on promising growth story, Nifty could move to 5,150 levels on positive cues, we are certainly headed upwards.”

The key gainer of the day was Reliance Energy, which surged 8.8%. The other gainers’ were Tata Steel, Infosys Technologies, HDFC Bank, ONGC, Cipla and ACC.

On the other hand, the major loser’ was Hundustan Unilever, which shed more than 2.8%. Ambuja Cements, Reliance Communications, Hindalco Industries and Grasim Industries were some of the losers.

Among the NSE-50 counters, leading stocks comprised Sterlite Industries, NALCO, Zee Entertainment, HCL Technologies, Satyam Computers, TCS together with Reliance Energy assisted Nifty cross 5,000 mark.

Among sectoral indices, BSE Metal index was the top gainer that made a profit of more than 3.1%. Buying also emerged in IT counters.

Saurabh Mittal, MD, Swadeshi Credit Share Brokers said, “The IT sector has been a laggard on account of rupee-dollar equation. However, it should be back in flavour once companies start to announce Q2 results.”