Stock Market: Sensex Jumps 700 Points, Nifty Ends Above 17,200 Tracking Positive Global Cues

Stock Update: HUL, Asian Paints, NTPC, Power Grid, Larsen & Toubro, State Bank of India, Infosys, Axis Bank, and RIL were among the major gainers among the Sensex platform

New Delhi: Sensex and Nifty, key equity benchmarks, on Thursday settled higher, riding higher on investors’ optimism after in across board rally tracking global positive cues.

After having fallen nearly 1 per cent in the previous session, the 30-share BSE Sensex index rose 700 points to about 57,521, and the broader NSE Nifty gained 1.2 per cent to 17,245.

On the BSE, 26 of the 30 Sensex constituents and 45 of the 50 Nifty constituents ended the day in the green led by HUL, HDFC Life, SBI Life, Asian Paints, UPL, PowerGrid, L&T, NTPC, SBI, and Infosys. In contrast, Bharti Airtel, M&M, HCL Technologies, and HDFC Bank were the laggards.

In the broader markets, the BSE Midcap index added 0.86 per cent while the BSE Smallcap index edged only 0.19 per cent higher.

On Wednesday, the Sensex plunged 537 points (0.94 per cent) to end at 56,819 points, while on the NSE Nifty declined 162 points (0.94 per cent) to 17,038 points.

The rally in domestic stocks was fuelled by gains in global markets. Stock markets in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Seoul ended with healthy gains.

Markets in Europe were trading in the green in the afternoon session. Stocks in the US had ended mostly higher on Wednesday. On Wall Street, Nasdaq Futures were up 2 per cent, while Dow Jones and S&P500 Futures added 1 per cent each.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude slipped 0.07 per cent to $105.33 per barrel.

Foreign institutional investors continued their selling spree, offloading shares worth Rs 4,064.54 crore on Wednesday, according to stock exchange data.