New Delhi: Sensex and Nifty, the two key equity benchmarks, on Wednesday continued to extend their gains in opening trade, mostly led by IT and pharma stocks.
The Sensex jumped 400 points to 54,740, while the Nifty50 rose 130 points to 16,400. However, the two indices pared gains that they have accumulated during early trade.
At 10.15 am, the 30-share BSE Sensex rose 215 points to 54,533, while the broader NSE Nifty 16,329, up 70 points.
On the BSE, Sun Pharma was the lead gainer with 1.82 per cent, followed by Axis Bank, Maruti, Infosys, HDFC Bank, TechM, and others. On the flip side, Power Grid was the prime laggard with 1.86 per cent, followed by NTPC, SBI, Airtel, Reliance, and others.
In the broader market, midcap and smallcap shares were trading on a strong note as Nifty midcap 100 gained 0.59 per cent, while smallcap climbed 0.52 per cent.
On NSE, 13 out of the 15 sector gauges were trading in the positive zone. Nifty IT and Nifty Pharma were outperforming the index by rising as much as 1.11 per cent and 1.01 per cent, respectively.
On the Sensex platform, the overall market breadth stood strong as 1,964 shares were advancing and 558 were declining.
Markets in Asia were trading on a mixed note, with Seoul and Tokyo quoting in the green, while Shanghai and Hong Kong traded lower.
In the previous trading on Tuesday, the BSE Sensex zoomed 1,344 points (2.54 per cent) to end at 54,318, while the NSE Nifty rallied 417 points (2.63 per cent) to settle at 16,259 points.
Meanwhile, in the US, stock exchanges had ended significantly higher on Tuesday.
Global oil benchmark Brent crude gained 0.4 per cent to $112.35 per barrel.
According to stock exchange data, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued to offload shares worth Rs 2,192.44 crore on Tuesday.