Mumbai, Sep 24 : India's benchmark equity index S&P BSE Sensex crossed the 60,000 points milestone during Friday's early morning trade session. Accordingly, the 30-scrip sensitive index traded at 60,166.69 points at 9.15 a.m. just after the pre-open session. The Sensex opened at 60,158.76 points from its previous close of 59,885.36 points. It took 246 days to accumulate the last 10,000 points for the 60,000-mark. Notably, the Sensex took only 42 days to gain the last 5,000 points. Besides, the NSE Nifty50 traded above the 17,900 points-mark. It opened at 17,897.45 points from its previous close of 17,822.95. The Nifty touched a record intraday high of 17,927.20 points. At 10 a.m. the Sensex traded at 60,036.37 points, higher by 151.01 points or 0.25 per cent from its previous close. Similarly, NSE Nifty50 edged higher. It rose to 17,866.15 points, higher by 43.20 points or 0.24 per cent from its previous close. "The market is growing due to excess liquidity and a low-interest rate regime. Investors also felt relieved by the Federal Reserve's stance on withdrawing stimulus and raising interest rates," said Ashish Biswas, Head of Technical Research, CapitalVia Global Research. "FIIs and DIIs continue to pour in more investment in the market which has led to further highs. The fear of the third wave has also decreased and investors are not worried about the adverse impacts on the economy as more and more people get vaccinated." According to Dhiraj Relli, MD & CEO, HDFC Securities: "This shows the impact of return of FPIs and local investors continuing to invest despite headwinds that cropped up time and again." "The absence of a 10 per cent correction in the indices over the last 18 months shows the maturity of the local investors, but also throws up the possibility of that happening over the next few weeks or months." /IANS