The Indian equity benchmarks were trading higher led by gains in information technology, oil & gas and energy stocks. The Sensex rose as much as 408 points to hit an intraday high of 50,258.09 and Nifty was trading firmly above its important psychological level of 14,850. HDFC Bank, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank and Reliance Industries were top movers in the Sensex.
As of 9:23 am, the Sensex rose 390 points to 50,240 and Nifty 50 index advanced 108 points to 14,870.
All the 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty IT index’s 2 per cent gain. Nifty Bank, Private Bank, PSU Bank, Financial Services and Realty indexes rose between 1-1.4 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.
Bharat Petroleum was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose over 4 per cent to Rs 474 after its board of directors approved sale of its entire equity stake in Numaligarh Refinery to a consortium of Oil India Limited, Engineers India Limited and government of Assam for total consideration of Rs 9,875 crore.
NTPC, Infosys, Wipro, Bajaj Finance, Tech Mahindra, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp, Indian Oil, Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC Bank and Bajaj Finserv also rose between 1.5-3.2 per cent.
On the other hand, ONGC, Hindcalo, Shree Cements, JSW Steel, HDFC, Tata Steel, Eicher Motors, Power Grid and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 1,646 shares were advancing while 542 were declining on the BSE.