Benchmark indices were trading in the green on Wednesday afternoon, led by pharma and bank stocks. Market, after opening on a positive note, extended gains through the first half.

Market also welcomed a host of measures announced by the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das.

At 1 pm, the BSE Sensex was ruling 386.74 points higher at 48,640.30, almost near at day's peak level of 48,667.14.

The Nifty 50 was also nearing the day’s high of 14,616.10 at 14,609.20, up 112.70 points or 0.78 per cent. It hit an intraday low of 14,506.60.

Sun Pharma, UPL, Kotak Bank, IndusInd Bank and Bharti Airtel were among the top gainers in the Nifty 50 pack, while Adani Ports, Bajaj Finance, Hindustan Unilever, SBI Life and L&T were among the top laggards.

Reserve Bank measures

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a host of measures, including a special ₹50,000 crore term liquidity facility for banks for on-lending to entities such as vaccine manufacturers involved in the fight against Covid-19, a special ₹10,000 crore long-term repo operation to support small finance banks to on-lend to MSEs, and a resolution framework 2.0 for individuals, small businesses and MSMEs. This has positively impacted the market, providing some relief to investors.

Dr VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said, "The RBI Governor Sakthikanda Das reassured the nation and markets that the RBI would be pro-active to ameliorate the pain and help businesses & boost the economy. Term liquidity of ₹50,000 crore as on-tap liquidity for access to the emergency health facility, 3-year TLTRO for small finance banks, another instalment of G-SAP of ₹ 35,000 crore lending by SFBs to MSMEs to be classified as priority sector lending... are all timely steps in the right direction.”

“The fact that there is no moratorium announcement will be seen by the markets as positive since the message is that the situation is not bad as to warrant another moratorium," added Vijayakumar.

Pharma leads the rally

On the sectoral front, all indices except Nifty FMCG and Nifty Realty were in the green.

The rally was led by pharma, bank and financials.

Nifty Pharma was up 3.32 per cent while Nifty Bank and Nifty PSU Bank were up,1.57 per cent and 2.01 per cent respectively. Nifty Private Bank was up 1.54 per cent. Nifty Financial Services was up 1.06 per cent.

Nifty FMCG tracked the highest losses and was down 0.14 per cent.

Broader indices

All broader indices were in the green.

Nifty Midcap 50 was up 0.63 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 50 was up 0.28 per cent. The S&P BSE Midcap was up 0.53 per cent while the S&P BSE Smallcap was up 0.61 per cent.

The volatility index softened by over 3 per cent.