The Indian equity benchmarks moved higher on Thursday led by gains in Bajaj Finance, Infosys, State Bank of India, Infosys, ICICI Bank, HDFC and Reliance Industries. The benchmarks opened higher and traded firmly higher for most part of the day. The Sensex rose as much as 405 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 15,751.25.
The Sensex ended 359 points or 0.69 per cent higher at 52,300 and Nifty 50 index climbed 102 points to close at 15,738.
Buying was visible across sectors as all the 11 sector gauges, barring the index of auto shares, ended higher led by the Nifty Media index’s over 4 per cent gain.
Nifty Bank, Financial Services, Metal, Pharma, PSU Bank and Realty indexes also rose between 1-3 per cent.
Broader markets outperformed their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices advanced nearly 2 per cent.
Bajaj Finance was top Nifty loser, the stock rose nearly 8 per cent to close at record high of Rs 6,110. Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, Divis Labs, IndusInd Bank, Wipro, Cipla, ITC, Dr Reddy’s Labs, Tata Steel, JSW Steel and Tata Consumer Products also rose between 1-4 per cent.
On the flipside, Bajaj Auto, Eicher Motors, UPL, Adani Ports, Shree Cements, Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp and HCL Technologies were among the losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,456 shares ended higher while 727 closed lower on the BSE.