Sensex Rises Over 250 Points, Nifty Opens Above 14,200

The S&P BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 indexes staged a gap up opening on Thursday after a day's pause in the previous session paced by gains in real estate, metal, IT and banking stocks. The Sensex rose as much as 384 points to hit an intraday high of 48,558 and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 14,256.25. Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank were top movers in the Sensex.

As of 9:22 am, the Sensex was up 287 points at 48,461 and Nifty 50 index advanced 83 points to 14,229.

Domestic markets mirrored gains in other Asian markets in anticipation of a big borrowing and big spending by Democrat administration driving growth, following runoff elections that gave the party control of both houses of US Congress.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.5 per cent to just shy of a record high, led by jumps of more than 1.5 per cent in South Korea's chipmaker-heavy Kospi and Australia's miner-and-bank heavy ASX 200.

Japan's Nikkei rose 2 per cent to its highest since 1990. S&P 500 futures rose 0.6 per cent and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.9 per cent as markets seemed to shake off a late New York session fade when chaotic protests in Washington unnerved traders.

Back home, buying was visible across sector as all the 11 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Realty index's over 3 per cent gain. Nifty Metal, PSU Bank and IT indexes also rose over a per cent each.

Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes rose over a per cent each.

Tata Steel was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 4 per cent to Rs 711. Hindalco, IndusInd Bank, State Bank of India, JSW Steel, Coal India, Axis Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Power Grid and Tata Motors also rose between 1.5-3.7 per cent.

On the flipside, Titan, TCS, Hindustan Unilever, Tech Mahindra, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Nestle India were among the losers.

The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 1,780 shares were trading higher while 399 were declining on the BSE.