Stock Market: Sensex Rises Over 500 Points, Nifty Trades Above 15,550; IT, Auto Lead

Sensex and Nifty, the two key equity benchmarks, on Thursday gained sharply tracking positive global cues, a day after witnessing steep losses.

At 10 am, the BSE Sensex was up 504 points at 52,327, while the broader NSE Nifty was trading at 15,571, up 157 points.

Among the 30-share Sensex platform, ICICI Bank, Airtel, Wipro, TCS, Maruti, Ultratech Cement, Asian Paints, M&M, and Dr Reddy’s were the top gainers, up to 2 per cent higher. On the Nifty, Hero Moto, and Bajaj Auto rose 4 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively.

Meanwhile Titan, PowerGrid, Reliance, Apollo Hospitals, ONGC, and SBI Life were the top laggards on the two benchmarks.

In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices were in the positive territory, up to 0.4 per cent higher.

On NSE, 11 out of the 15 sector gauges were trading in the green. Sub-indexes Nifty Auto and Nifty IT were outperforming the NSE platform by rising as much as 1.41 per cent and 1.09 per cent, respectively. Nifty Bank also held gains, while Realty was muted and oil and gas pocket in the red.

The overall market breadth was positive as 1,537 shares were advancing, while 598 were declining on the BSE.

In their previous session, Sensex had plunged 710 points (1.35 per cent) to close at 51,823 on Wednesday, while Nifty had moved 226 points (1.44 per cent) down to end at 15,413.

Recovering from its record low, the rupee inched higher by 9 paise to 78.23 against the US dollar in early morning trade on Thursday.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 78.26 against the American dollar, then inched higher to quote at 78.23, registering a rise of 9 paise from the previous close.

On Wednesday, the rupee declined by 19 paise to settle at an all-time low of 78.32 against the US dollar.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude futures fell 2.17 per cent to $109.32 per barrel.

Foreign institutional investors remained net sellers in the capital market on Wednesday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 2,920.61 crore, as per stock exchange data.