Sensex up 498 points intraday, Nifty above 17,300

Benchmark indices were trading higher during the afternoon on Thursday, led by oil & gas, IT and pharma stocks.

Market opened on a flat note amid mixed global cues and gained further during the morning trade. Indices extended gains during the first half, tracking gains in heavyweights such as HDFC.

At 1 pm, the BSE Sensex was trading at 58,183.24, up 498.45 points or 0.86 per cent. It hit an intraday high of 58,225.90 and a low of 57,680.41.

The Nifty 50 was trading at 17,313.80, up 146.90 points or 0.86 per cent, near the day’s high of 17,327.45. It recorded an intraday low of 17,149.30.

HDFC, Powergrid, Adani Ports, Sun Pharma and BPCL were the top gainers on the Nifty 50 while ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Bharti Airtel, Cipla and Ultratech Cement were the top losers.

Bank, realty under pressure

On the sectoral front, a majority of indices were in the green. While oil & gas, IT, financial services and pharma gained focus, bank stocks and realty stocks dragged.

Nifty Oil & Gas was up 1.26 per cent while Nifty IT was up 1.55 per cent. Nifty Pharma and Nifty Healthcare Index were up 0.53 per cent and 0.66 per cent, respectively. Nifty Financial Services was up 0.80 per cent.

Meanwhile, Nifty Bank was down 0.07 per cent. Nifty Private Bank and Nifty PSU Bank were down 0.06 per cent and 0.27 per cent, respectively. Nifty Realty was down 0.54 per cent.

Broader indices

As for broader indices, Nifty Midcap 50 was up 0.41 per cent while Nifty Smallcap 50 was down 0.15 per cent.

The S&P BSE Midcap was up 0.41 per cent while the S&P BSE Smallcap was up 0.72 per cent.

The volatility index was down 1.41 per cent to 19.17.

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