Sensex Closes 170 Points Higher Led By Gains In ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes ended higher in trade on Thursday led by gains in ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Infosys, HDFC, Bajaj Finance and Tata Consultancy Services. For most part of the day, the benchmarks traded in a rangebound manner owing to weekly expiry of derivative contracts. However, late buying in banking shares helped benchmarks clock gains for today's session. The Sensex rose as much as 322 points from day's lowest level and Nifty 50 index moved closer 11,900.

The Sensex ended 170 points or 0.4 per cent higher at 40,286 and Nifty 50 index advanced 32 points or 0.2 per cent to close at 11,872.

Six of 11 sector gauges compiled by National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty IT index's nearly 1 per cent gain.

Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Bank, Nifty Private Bank and Nifty Auto index also rose between 0.5 and 1 per cent each.

On the other hand, Nifty Metal index was top loser, down nearly 2 per cent.

Mid- and small-cap shares ended on a mixed note as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.3 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 100 index ended little changed.

ICICI Bank was top gainer in the Nifty 50 basket of shares, the stock rose 2.53 per cent to close at Rs 498.05. Infosys, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Cipla and Titan were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, Bharti Infratel, IndusInd Bank, Zee Entertainment, Hindalco, UltraTech Cement, Coal India and Tata Motors were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was negative as 1,058 shares ended lower while 726 closed higher on the BSE.