Sensex Rallies Over 1,500 Points, Nifty Reclaims 17,300 Led By Reliance, HDFC Bank

The Indian equity benchmarks extended gains after staging a gap up opening on Tuesday on the back of a short-covering rally led by gains in Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries. The Sensex rose as much as 1,590 points and the Nifty 50 index reclaimed its important psychological level 17,300.

The Sensex was up 1,540 points or 2.73 per cent at 57,945 and Nifty 50 index climbed 461 points or 2.74 per cent to 17,304 by 2:21 pm.

"On technical grounds, Nifty has an immediate resistance at 16,930. If Nifty closes above that, further upside can be expected towards 17,000-17,080 mark. On the flip side 16,750-16,630 will act as strong support levels. It’s a stock specific market trade calls with strict stop loss," brokerage firm Nirmal Bang said in a note.

"Bank Nifty faces an immediate resistance around 37,380 levels on the upside and on a decisive close above expect a rise to 37,740-38,000. There is an immediate support at 36,550-36,100 levels," Nirmal Bang added.

Buying was visible across the board as all the 15 sector gauges, barring the measure of oil & gas shares, were trading higher led by the Nifty Information Technology index's  nearly 2 per cent gain. Nifty FMCG, Realty, Healthcare, Consumer Durables, Metal and Media indices also rose between 0.5-1 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessed buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.3 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 0.5 per cent.

Wipro was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 2 per cent to Rs 553. Tech Mahindra, Infosys, Shree Cements, Hindustan Unilever, Titan, Larsen & Toubro, HCL Technologies and Kotak Mahindra Bank also rose between 1-2 per cent.

On the flipside, Cipla fell 3.5 per cent to Rs 922 on report that its promoters Yusuf Hamied and Mustafa Hamied were selling as much as 2.5 per cent stake in the company.

Eicher Motors fell 2.3 per cent to Rs 2,511 after its net profit declined 13.5 per cent to Rs 422 crore from Rs 488 crore in the same period last fiscal.

IndusInd Bank, Bharat Petroleum, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI Life and Indian Oil were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was neutral as 1,437 shares were advancing while 1,456 were declining on the BSE.