Mumbai, Aug 3 : Hopes of a faster economic rebound along with estimates of less severe third Covid wave lifted India's equity indices to fresh intraday record highs during Tuesday's afternoon session. Notably, the Nifty has breached the all-time high of 16,000. Besides, healthy macro-economic data as well as better-than-expected quarterly results boosted investors' sentiments. Segment wise, FMCG, Consumer Durables and Telecom shares saw healthy demand. Consequently, the S&P BSE Sensex hit a record level of 53,478.57 points and the Nifty50 touched a new high of 16,025 points. Around 12.45 p.m., Sensex was trading at 53,460.01, higher by 509.38 points or 0.96 per cent from its previous close. The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange was trading at 16,020.10, higher by 134.95 points or 0.85 per cent from its previous close. Healthy buying was witnessed in finance, telecom and consumer durables stocks. However, metal stocks declined. "Nifty again opened a gap up on Tuesday and continued to move up. Asian markets recovered from the lows but are still mixed," said Deepak Jasani -- Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities. "Advance decline ratio continues to be positive." According to Gaurav Garg, Head of Research at CapitalVia Global Research: "Indian benchmark indices started flat with the global sentiments intact towards positivity. Sentiments in the Indian market remained positive with the GST collection increasing and the manufacturing sector gaining a boost and posting the strongest rate of growth in the month of July amid easing of Covid restrictions." "Technical indicators also support positivity in the market. Higher earnings being posted by companies in the global market is another factor adding to the positive sentiments in the market." In addition, Rahul Sharma, Co- Founder, Equity99: "This surge in the market is backed up with strong performance from the industry leaders like HDFC from Banking, TCS and Infosys from IT pack, big support is coming from FMCG giants like UBL, Britannia, Marico." /IANS