Indian shares ended at record closing highs on Tuesday after a long weekend, following gains in Asian peers, as news of another promising coronavirus vaccine lifted hopes.

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Investor sentiment was given a boost when US drugmaker Moderna said its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was 94.5 percent effective in preventing infection.

The Sensex rose 315 points to end at a new closing high of 43,952.7 while the Nifty was up 94 points to settle at a record close of 12,874. In intraday deals as well, the benchmarks hit new highs. The Sensex surged as much as 523 points to its new all-time high of 44,161 while the Nifty rallied 154 points to its fresh high of 12,934.

Markets had eked out modest gains in a one-hour special “muhurat” trading session for Diwali on Saturday and were closed on Monday.

On the Nifty50 index, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, HDFC Life, SBI and Adani Ports were the top gainers while BPCL, Hero Moto, NTPC, IOC and ONGC led the losses.

Broader markets were also positive for the day with the Nifty Midcap index hitting its 52-week high, up over 1 percent and the Nifty Smallcap index up 0.3 percent.

Among sectors, Nifty Metal rose the most, up 2.3 percent while Nifty Bank and Nifty Fin Services were up around 2 percent each. Nifty Auto also added 1 percent. However, the FMCG, IT, and pharma indices ended in the

red for the day.

Tata Steel jumped 6 percent as brokerages maintained bullish view on the stock after the company reported its September quarter earnings. Tata Steel reported a 59.6 percent year-on-year (YoY) fall in Q2FY21 profit at Rs 1,635.4 crore, against Rs 4,043.5 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. Total revenue from operations, however, rose 7.4 percent to Rs 37,154 crore from Rs 34,759 crore, YoY.

BPCL slipped over 4 percent as Reliance Industries as well as supermajors Saudi Aramco, BP and Total did not make any bid in the stake sale. Finance Minister in a tweet said, "Strategic disinvestment of BPCL now moves to the second stage after multiple expressions of interest have been received."

(Edited by : Pranati Deva)