Mumbai, March 3 (IANS): Continuing with the post-budget euphoria, the wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) breached the 9,000-point mark for the first time on Tuesday.

The Nifty touched an intra-day high of 9,008.40 points, surpassing the previous record of 8,972.35 points on Monday. The index had earlier breached the 8,996.60 points mark on Jan 30.

The Nifty of the NSE provisionally closed Tuesday's trade up 39.50 points or 0.44 percent at 8,969.30 points.

The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex), too closed Tuesday's trade with healthy gains. It provisionally closed the day's trade 135 points or 0.46 percent up.

The Sensex of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 29,500.19 points, closed at 29,593.73 points (provisional), up 134.59 points or 0.46 percent from the previous day's close at 29,459.14 points.

The Sensex touched a high of 29,636.86 points and a low of 29,364.87 points in the intra-day trade.

Healthy buying was observed in healthcare, oil and gas, information technology (IT), technology, entertainment and media (TECK) and capital goods stocks.

However, auto, metal, bank and realty stocks came under selling pressure.

The S&P BSE healthcare index was up 214.72 points, followed by oil and gas index which was higher by 214.17 points, IT index rose 173.25 points, TECK index augmented by 81.50 points and capital goods index gained 68.41 points.

However, S&P BSE automobile index was down 171.82 points, metal index was lower by 68.65 points, bank index lost 61.57 points and realty index slipped 21.59 points.