Sensex soars over 350 points on global cues, F&O expiry

Mumbai: The benchmark BSE Sensex surged over 350 points and the NSE Nifty reclaimed the 10,800 mark in early trade on Thursday on positive trend in other Asian bourses as dovish comments from US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell boosted investor sentiment here.

Short-covering of bets on the last session of November futures and options (F&O) derivatives series kept the market mood upbeat. Rally in rupee, which gained 57 paise against the US dollar, also supported the upmove in the domestic stock market.

The 30-share index, which had gained 203.81 points in the previous sessions, spurted 364.32 points, or 1.02 per cent, to trade at 36,081.27.

The NSE Nifty was also trading 80.30 points, or 0.74 per cent, higher at 10,809.15.

Major gainers were Vedanta, RIL, Tata Steel, ITC, PowerGrid, IndusInd Bank, Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, SBI, HUL and ICICI Bank, rising up to 3.81 per cent.

While, Yes Bank fell 4.55 per cent, ONGC 1.89 per cent, Coal India 1.27 per cent, TCS 0.93 per cent and Infosys 0.35 per cent. Metal, FMCG, power, banking, auto, consumer durables, healthcare, capital goods, realty, oil and gas and PSU sector stocks were leading the market rally.

Brokers said that the market mood remained buoyant, bolstered by foreign institutional investors' buying coupled with a firming trend overseas tracking a Wall Street rally overnight after US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the central bank's benchmark interest rate is likely to be near a neutral level.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net of Rs 961.26 crore on Wednesday, while domestic institutional investors sold shares to the tune of Rs 330.29 crore, provisional data with stock exchanges showed.

Overseas, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.83 per cent, Japan's Nikkei gained 0.88 per cent and Shanghai Composite index edged higher by 0.46 per cent in early trade.

On Wall Street, the US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 2.50 per cent up on Wednesday.