Mumbai, Jan 23 (IANS): A day after the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a mega bond buying program, a benchmark index of Indian equities markets Friday scaled a new peak of 29,408.73 points in the intra-day trade.

The new high of 29,408.73 points surpassed the previous record of 29,060.41 points breached in Thursday's intra-day trade.

In Friday's trade healthy buying was seen in automobile, capital goods, banking, metal and oil and gas sectors. However, information technology (IT) and consumer durables scrip dipped.

The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 29,189.45 points, was trading at 29,280.48 points (at 2.00 p.m.), up 274.46 points or 0.95 percent from the previous day's close at 29,006.02 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 29,408.73 points and a low of 29,165.56 points in the trade so far.

The S&P automobile index gained by 269.62 points, capital goods index surged by 247.10 points, banking index got augmented by 227.90 points, metal index moved up by 79.47 points and the oil and gas index rose 71.09 points.

However, IT index was lower by 18.86 points and consumer durables index was down 3.44 points.

The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) also touched a new high of 8,866.40 points from its previous record of 8,774.15 points in Thursday's intra-day trade.

It was trading with healthy gains. It had increased by 73.20 points or 0.84 percent at 8,834.60 points.