Sensex advances on all round buying

The Indian markets managed to garner smart gains on Wednesday on the auspicious occasion of ‘Dhanteras’, which is synonymous with wealth and prosperity. The benchmark India stock indices opened with a positive bias following the overnight gains on Wall Street and European markets. Firm trend across other Asian markets at start also helped support the positive sentiment.



The upswing was led by Metals, Auto and Banking stocks. The only laggard was the Oil & Gas stocks, with index heavyweight Reliance Industries among the major drag.

"Decision from the FOMC meet, review from central banks in the UK, EU and Japan would be watched for near-term trend. The Coal India listing on Thursday and the monthly US jobs report will also have a bearing on the sentiment going forward.", says Amar Ambani, Head of Research (India Private Clients) - IIFL.

The BSE Sensex rose 120 points to close at 20,466. The NSE Nifty gained 42 points to end at 6,161.

Barring the BSE Oil & Gas index all the other sectoral indices ended in the green, the index lost 0.4%. Among the major gainers were, BSE Metal index was the top gainer, the index gained 1.5%, the BSE Auto index gained 1.1% and BSE Bank index gained 1%.

The broader indices ended with gains as well, the BSE Mid-Cap index ended higher by 0.7% and BSE Small-Cap index added 0.8%.

The European indices were trading almost flat with a slight positive bias, the DAX in Germany was flat, the CAC 40 index in France was up 0.2% and FTSE index was up 0.2%.

Outside the frontline indices, the big gainers in the broader market were RCF, NFL, Shree Cem, Adani Power and Mundra Port. On the other hand, losers included Jain Irrigation, GE Shipping, Asian Paints and Torrent Power.