New Delhi, Nov 24 (IANS): The BSE Sensex hit an all-time high scaling past the 62,000-mark on Thursday with experts forecasting continued buoyancy in the Indian stock markets.

The BSE Sensex closed at an all-time high of 62,272.68 points, up 762.10 points or 1.24 per cent, on Thursday.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said Indian equities had a stupendous day on the monthly F&O expiry with key benchmark indices touching record levels.

While the Sensex hit an all-time high, Nifty was just 74 points away from its life highs. Nifty hit a fresh 52-week high to close at 18,484.10, up 216.80 points or 1.19 per cent.

Bank Nifty continued to make new highs and closed above 43,000 for the first time.

V.K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said two triggers assisted the Sensex rally to record highs.

One, in the US, the market construct turned favourable with rising equities, declining bond yields and falling dollar. Two, macro developments in India show steady rise in credit growth and capex indicating strong economic recovery. Along with this, sharp correction in crude is a big positive. This has facilitated the Sensex rally led by large-caps, mainly the HDFC twins, Infosys, TCS and RIL, he said.

All sectors ended in the green. Value buying was seen in IT stocks on back of attractive valuation and rally in global IT index - Nasdaq. Few PSU banks hit new 52-week high as momentum in these stocks continued.

Global markets rallied as investors welcomed US Federal minutes which suggested that they might tone down its pace of interest rate hike in its next policy meeting.

Khemka said that going forward, the positive momentum in Indian markets is expected to continue buoyed by positive global cues, fall in crude oil prices to 10-month low and ninth consecutive weekly decline in India VIX to 52-week low.