Sensex Rallies Over 1,000 Points, Nifty Above 17,200 Led By Banking Shares

The Indian equity benchmarks extended gains after staging a gap up opening on Tuesday with the 30-share Sensex rising over 1,000 points and Nifty 50 index reclaiming its important psychological level of 17,200 led by gains in Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and Tata Steel amid positive cues from other Asian markets. Asian stocks edged higher on Tuesday on receding worries about the impact of the Omicron variant while Chinese markets gained after the central bank there eased monetary policy.

As of 12:30 pm, the Sensex was up 948 points at 57,688 and Nifty 50 index climbed 275 points or 1.63 per cent to 17,187.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advanced 0.6 per cent after declining on Monday to the lowest level in one year.

Overnight, dollar edged higher while US and European shares rallied on Monday after easing concerns about the Omicron coronavirus variant led investors to buy stocks that will likely perform well in a rising interest rate environment.

On Wall Street stocks pared earlier strong gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.87 per cent, the S&P 500 gained 1.17 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.93 per cent.

Back home, buying was visible across the board as all the 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty bank index's over 2.5 per cent gain. Nifty Metal, Realty, Private Bank, PSU Bank, Oil & Gas, Bank, Auto and Financial Services indexes also rose between 1-2.5 per cent each.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.89 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index advanced 1.2 per cent.

Hindalco was top Nifty gainer, the stock jumped 3.3 per cent to Rs 435. JSW Steel, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, Maruti Suzuki, State Bank of India, Adani Ports, ONGC, Grasim Industries and Tata Motors also rose between 1-3 per cent.

On the flipside, Cipla, Dr Reddy's Labs, Divi's Labs and SBI Life were among the notable losers.

The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,302 shares were advancing while 866 were declining on the BSE.