Mumbai: The BSE Sensex hit a fresh record high of 34,487.52 while NSE Nifty touched lifetime high of 10,659.15 in opening session today on smart gains in Coal India, Tata Motors and SBI. Rising for the third straight day, the 30-share index spurted by 134.73 points, or 0.39 per cent, to hit a new peak of 34,487.52. 

The gauge gained 559.41 points in previous three sessions to close at a record high at 34,352.79 in yesterday's session. It had also touched an intra-day lifetime high of 34,385.67 in the previous session. Sectoral indices, led by IT, Teck and metal were trading in the positive zone with gains up to 0.22 percent. The 50-share NSE Nifty gained 35.55 points, or 0.33 percent, to scale its lifetime high of 10,659.15. 

The gauge had touched an intra-day high of 10,631.20 yesterday. Coal India soared by over 7 percent after its board approved a hike in prices of non-coking coal for power and non-power sectors with immediate effect. The price hike would boost its revenue by Rs 1,956 crore in the remaining part of the 2017-18 fiscal. 

Among other gainers, Wipro, ONGC, Tata Motors, M&M, SBI, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever, Tata Steel, HDFC Ltd, TCS, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Kotak Bank and Maruti Suzuki rose up to 2 percent. Continuous foreign fund inflows and raising of bets by investors amid optimism over third quarterly earnings and upcoming budget helped the key indices to hit record hits, traders said. 

Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 692.83 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth Rs 206.30 crore yesterday, according to provisional exchange data. 

Among other Asian markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.26 percent, while Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.13 percent in their early deals. Japan's Nikkei too edged higher 0.54 percent. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, closed 0.05 percent lower yesterday.