Stock Market: Sensex Zooms 617 Points, Nifty Ends At 15,990; Financial, Consumer Lead

Stock update: Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints, Titan, Maruti Suzuki India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Nestle were the major gainers on the BSE

Sensex and Nifty, the two key equity benchmarks, on Wednesday settled in the green, led by gains in financial, consumer, and automobile stocks and strength in global peers.

The BSE Sensex rallied 617 points to close at 53,751. The index gained 608 points from the day's low of 53,143. The broader NSE Nifty50 gained 179 points to close at 15,990. The index had touched an intra-day low of 15,801.  

On The 30-share BSE platform, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints, Titan, Maruti Suzuki India, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Nestle were the major gainers.

On the flipside, Power Grid, NTPC, Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, and Tata Steel were the laggards.

In the broader markets, Midcap and Smallcap shares finished on a strong note as Nifty Midcap 100 zoomed 1.90 per cent and Smallcap rose 0.49 per cent.

On NSE, 14 out of the 15 sector gauges settled in the positive zone. Sub-indexes Nifty Financial Services, Nifty FMCG, Nifty Consumer Durables and Nifty Auto outperformed the NSE platform by rising as much as 3.12 per cent, 2.64 per cent, 2.35 per cent and 2.60 per cent.

Softening crude oil prices, FIIs repositioning to net buyers and strong business data from lenders boosted domestic equities, Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services, said.

Crude prices fell sharply by 10 per cent on Tuesday which "boosted the appetite for consumption, chemicals, logistics and OMCs as it will reduce the cost burden of these sectors", Nair said.

Among the BSE sectoral indices, auto jumped 2.73 per cent, followed by consumer discretionary goods & services (2.47 per cent), FMCG (2.45 per cent), consumer durables (2.42 per cent) and realty (2.39 per cent). Energy and metal were the only laggards.

"According to preliminary data made public on the NSE, FIIs became net purchasers on July 5 for the first time since May 30, purchasing shares worth Rs 1,295.84 crore," Mohit Nigam, Head - PMS at Hem Securities, said.

In their previous trading on Tuesday, the BSE benchmark declined 100 points (0.19 per cent) to settle at 53,134, the Nifty dipped 24 points (0.15 per cent) to 15,810.

Elsewhere in Asia, markets in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Seoul ended lower on Wednesday. European markets were trading higher in mid-session deals. The US markets ended mostly higher on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 2.43 per cent to $105.3 per barrel.