Sensex Surges Nearly 500 Points, Nifty Settles Above 11,800

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 Indexes staged a sharp upmove in today's session led by gains in ICICI Bank, Reliance Industries, Larsen & Toubro, HDFC, IndusInd Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and Maruti Suzuki. The Sensex and Nifty opened lower but staged a strong recovery on the back of buying interest in auto, banking, capital goods and metal shares. Indian equity markets rose along with global markets after the US Federal Reserve signalled it was likely to cut interest rates next month. The Fed on Wednesday suggested rate cuts might start as soon as next month, saying it was ready to take action in the face of growing economic risks.

The S&P BSE Sensex surged 1.25 per cent or 489 points to close at 39,601.63 and the NSE Nifty 50 Index climbed 1.2 per cent or 140 points to close at 11,832.

"Markets are bullish and we have seen short-covering. The correction was due to geo-political factors and now bulls have taken charge of the markets and from here on we should see the 12,000 plus levels on Nifty soon," Sumeet Bagadia, associate director at Choice Broking told NDTV over phone.

All the 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE ended higher led by the S&P BSE Auto Index's 2.46 per cent gain. Telecom, Consumer Discretionary Goods & Services, Healthcare, Industrials, Bankex, Capital Goods, Consumer Durables, Metal and Realty sector gauges also rose between 1.6 and 2.1 per cent each.

Mid- and small-cap shares witnessed also witnessed buying interest as the S&P BSE MidCap Index advanced 1.6 per cent and the S&P BSE SmallCap Index rose 1.05 per cent.

Among the individual shares, Jet Airways shares more than doubled from record low to close at Rs 73.55, Analysts said the massive bounce back in stock price probably came on the back of short covering by traders and advised to stay away from this share.

In the Nifty 50 basket of shares, Yes Bank, Indiabulls Housing Finance and IndusInd Bank staged a rebound in today's session and surged between 4 and 11 per cent on the back of heavy trading volumes.

Sun Pharma, JSE Steel, L&T, Cipla, Maruti Suzuki, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Auto were also among the gainers.

On the flipside, UPL, Wipro, Adani Ports, Britannia Industries and Tech Mahindra were among the notable losers.