Sensex rallies over 1,000 points, Nifty ends at 14,982 in extended session

Stock market indices ended 2 per cent higher on Wednesday, in an extended trading session, led mainly by gains in banking and financial stocks with the Nifty Bank surging over 1,400 points or 4 per cent. On the Nifty50 index, four of the top five gainers were from the BFSI space. 

The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex zoomed to day's high during the fag-end of the session, soaring 1,130 points in the intra-day trade. The index ended 1,030 points, or 2 per cent, higher at 50,782 levels. HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI, and HDFC, up in the range of 3 per cent and 5 per cent, were the top gainers among the 23 stocks that ended in the green.

Axis Bank was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, surging around 5 per cent, followed by HDFC twins, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance and SBI.

On the other hand, PowerGrid, Dr Reddy's, TCS and Asian Paints were among the laggards.

Minutes before the scheduled closure of trade at 3.30 pm, leading bourses BSE and NSE said their equity and derivatives markets will remain open till 5 pm.

The move came after the National Stock Exchange (NSE) suffered an outage earlier in the day due to technical glitches. Trading across segments came to a halt at 1140 hrs due to connectivity issues.

However, the broader Indian markets were not impacted as communication lines at BSE remained operational.

"Technical glitch did not impact domestic market sentiment though volatility was high with a positive prejudice, in the first session. During the extra session, the market gathered more strength and hugely outperforming the global peers, triggered by squaring-off F&O positions a day ahead of the prefixed monthly expiry date.

"The global market was mixed, not very convinced that world central banks like Fed will maintain a flexible monetary policy even during rising bond yield and inflation. And the Asian market was negatively impacted by a hike in stamp duty on equities," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

BSE bankex, finance, telecom, capital goods and energy indices rallied up to 3.86 per cent, while power and utilities ended in the red.

Broader BSE midcap and smallcap indices surged up to 1.08 per cent.

Elsewhere in Asia, bourses in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo ended on a negative note.

Stock exchanges in Europe, however, were trading with gains in mid-session deals.

Meanwhile, the global oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.96 per cent higher at USD 65.10 per barrel.

In the forex market, the rupee gained 11 paise to settle at 72.35 against the US dollar supported by positive domestic equities and weakness of the American currency in the overseas market.

(With inputs from agencies)