The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes extended gains in afternoon trading led by gains in banking, financial services and metal stocks. The Sensex rose as much as 749 points and the Nifty 50 index climbed 227 points to move above its important psychological level of 10,100. The sharp up move in the benchmarks came on the back of short covering rally as weekly index futures and option contracts are set to expire today.
As of 2:49 pm, the Sensex was up 646 points at 34,154 and Nifty surged 184 points to 10,065.
All the 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by Nifty Bank index's 3.11 per cent surge. Nifty Financial Services, Private Bank, PSU Bank and PSU Bank indexes also rose between 2-3 per cent each.
Mid- and small-sap shares were also witnessing buying interest as the Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes rose over a per cent each.
41 out of fifty shares in Nifty were trading higher led by Bajaj Finserv's 6 per cent gain. Coal India, Zee Entertainment, Bajaj Finance, Vedanta, JDFC, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, Power Grid, State Bank of India and ITC were also among the gainers.
On the flipside, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, Nestle India, Bajaj Auto, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti Suzuki and Sun Pharma were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 1,825 shares were advancing while 719 were declining on the BSE.
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