Sensex Rises Over 500 Points, Nifty Reclaims 17,000 Led By Reliance, HDFC

The Indian equity benchmarks surged on Wednesday mirroring gains in other Asian markets led by gains in Reliance Industries, HDFC, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, ITC, HDFC Bank and Maruti Suzuki. The Sensex rose as much as 573 points and Nifty 50 index reclaimed its psychological level of 17,100.

As of 138 m, the Sensex was up 591 points at 57,053 and Nifty 50 index advanced 175 points to 17,134.

Most of the Asian markets were trading higher with Jaans Nikkei 0.7 per cent, Hang Seng up 0.8 per cent and Taiwan Weighted up 0.2 per cent.

Overnight,US stocks overcame a weak start and finished broadly higher Tuesday, giving the major indexes on Wall Street their best day in nearly five weeks.

The S&P 500 rose 1.6 per cent, enough to recoup almost all of its losses from last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.5 per cent and the Nasdaq gained 2.2 per cent.

The last time the indexes mounted a bigger rally was March 16. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq came into this week with two straight weekly losses, while the Dow has fallen three weeks in a row.

Stocks have mostly struggled this year amid uncertainty over how the economy and Corporate America will be affected as the Federal Reserve moves to reverse low-interest rate policies that helped markets soar in recent years.

Back home, buying was visible across the board as all the 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty 2.15 per cent gain. Nifty Oil & Gas, FMCG, IT, Media, PSU Bank, Consumer Durables and Realty indices also rose between 0.5-2 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes rose over 1 per cent each.

Eicher Motors was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 4.85 per cent to Rs 2,573. Reliance Industries, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Bharat Petroleum, Coal India, Tata Consultancy Services, Hero MotoCorp, UPL, Wipro, Shree Cement and Britannia Industries also rose between 1.5-3.2 per cent.

On the flipside, Larsen & Toubro, Power Grid, Apollo Hospitals, ONGC, Bajaj Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank and ICICI Bank were among the notable losers.

The overall market was extremely positive as 2,099 shares were advancing while 833 were declining on the BSE.