Mumbai, May 27 (IANS): The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) settled at its record closing level on Thursday.

It closed at 15,337.85, higher by 36.40 points or 0.24 per cent from its previous close of 15,301.45 points.

Healthy buying was witnessed in banking and IT stocks.

The BSE Sensex closed at 51,115.22, higher by 97.70 points or 0.19 per cent from its previous close of 51,017.52 points.

It had opened at 51,128.80 and touched an intra-day high of 51,282.90 and a low of 50,891.66 points.

Shrikant Chouhan, Executive Vice President, Equity Technical Research at Kotak Securities said: "Due to the rebalancing of the FTSE index, the market remained heavily volatile on the day of monthly expiry of the F&O contracts. The Nifty once again gave buyers the opportunity to buy on dips."

The top gainers on the Sensex were State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank, while the major losers were HDFC, Bajaj Finance and ONGC.