Equity markets soared on Tuesday as stocks of information technology and consumer goods firms rallied on economic indicators showing an uptick. The 50-share NSE Nifty surpassed the 16,000-mark for the first time, while the 30-share BSE Sensex gained 1.65% during the day’s trading.

Sensex closed at 53,823.36, gaining 872.73 points and Nifty rose by 245.6 points to finish at 16,130.75. Both the benchmark indices hit all-time highs in intra-day trading. Though they fell from that mark, the indices finished at record closing highs.

Experts pointed out that a strong Goods and Services Tax collection in July and robust figures for June factory output indicated a recovery in demand.

The GST collection for the month of July rose to Rs 1,16,393 crore, after slipping below the Rs 1 lakh-crore mark for the first time in eight months in June. Meanwhile, the output of eight core sectors rose by 8.9% in June, compared to the same month last year.

“This surge in the market is backed up with strong performance from the industry leaders [in financial results for first quarter] like HDFC from banking, TCS and Infosys from IT pack,” Rahul Sharma, co-founder of brokerage firm Equity99 told the Mint. “Big support is coming from FMCG [fast moving consumer goods] giants like UBL [United Breweries], Britannia and Marico.”

In Tuesday’s trading, stocks of large-cap entities like Titan, HDFC, Nestle, State Bank of India were among the top gainers. All major information technology stocks also finished with gains in the range of 0.5% to 1.50%.

Tata Steel and Bajaj Automobiles were the only notable firms to suffer losses.