Sensex, Nifty Close Higher For Second Straight Day Led By IT Shares

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes came off intraday highs to close higher for a second day in a row led by gains in Infosys, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finance, Tata Consultancy Services and Hindustan Unilever. Earlier in the day, the benchmarks staged a gap up opening as investors cheered the government's move to open places of worship, malls and restaurants. The Sensex rose as much as 640 points and Nifty 50 index briefly moved above its important psychological level of 10,300. However, profit booking at higher levels led to the benchmarks coming off intraday highs.

The Sensex ended 83 points or 0.24 per cent higher at 34,371 and the Nifty 50 index advanced 25 points or 0.25 per cent to end at 10,167.

Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended lower led by the Nifty Media index's nearly 2 per cent decline. Pharma and PSU Bank indexes also dropped over a per cent each.

On the other hand, Nifty IT index was top gainer, up 1.8 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares outperformed their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index advanced 0.5 per cent and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index rose 1.2 per cent.

GAIL India was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 7.5 per cent to close at Rs 105. IndusInd Bank, Bharat Petroleum, Axis Bank, ONGC, Bajaj Finance, Indian Oil, Tata Motors, Titan and Bajaj Finserv were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, Zee Entertainment, Shree Cements, Eicher Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bharti Infratel, Cipla, UltraTech Cement and Grasim Industries were among the losers.

Overall market breadth was positive as 1,811 shares ended higher while 858 closed lower on the BSE.