Overall market breadth was positive as 1,582 shares were advancing while 604 were declining on the BSE.
The Indian equity benchmarks extended gains to third straight session led by gains in State Bank of India, Reliance Industries, HDFC, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. The Sensex rose as much as 480 points and Nifty 50 index moved above its important psychological level of 15,000.
As of 9:25 am, the Sensex was up 362 points at 50,660 and Nifty 50 index advanced 114 points to 15,032.
Meanwhile, Asian shares edged higher on Wednesday as investors shrugged off concerns that stocks may have rallied too far too fast in the past year, and focused instead on optimism that more imminent U.S. stimulus will energise the global economic recovery.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.44 per cent. Australian shares were up 0.62 per cent, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index rose only 0.03 per cent. Shares in China gained 0.63 per cent.
Wall Street had retreated overnight after beginning March with a bang, with the S&P 500 staging its best one-day rally in nine months on Monday.
Back home, foreign institutional investors bought shares worth Rs 2,223 crore while domestic institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 854 crore.
All the 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Metal index’s 3.7 per cent gain. Nifty PSU Bank, Private Bank, Media, Realty Financial Services and Bank indexes also rose between 0.75-11.2 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.
Tata Steel was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 5 per cent to Rs 772. JSW Steel, Hindalco, Tata Motors, Adani Ports, HDFC, Axis Bank, State Bank of India, Dr Reddy’s Labs and Grasim Industries also rose between 1.34.5 per cent.
On the flipside, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Maruti Suzuki, Eicher Motors, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies and Titan were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was positive as 1,582 shares were advancing while 604 were declining on the BSE.