The Indian equity benchmarks extended gains in late morning deals on Wednesday led by gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Infosys, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bajaj Finserv and Bajaj Finance. The Sensex rose as much as 547 points and Nifty 50 index reclaimed its important psychological level of 18,200. The benchmarks have been on a strong up move since start of this year on hopes of strong economic reforms in the upcoming Union Budget which will be presented on February 1, analysts said.
As of 11:22 am, the Sensex was up 511 points at 61,127 and Nifty 50 index climbed 142 points to 18,197.
The Sensex has rallied 5 per cent and Nifty has advanced 4.91 per cent since start of 2022 as investors are expecting government to announce strong reform oriented measures to bolster growth in the upcoming Budget, analysts said.
Twelve of 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange were trading higher led by the Nifty Realty index's nearly 2 per cent gain. Nifty Oil & Gas, Metal, Private Bank, PSU Bank, Bank, Financial Services and Auto indices also advanced in range of 0.5-1.2 per cent.
On the other hand, select pharma, consumer durables and healthcare shares were witnessing selling pressure.
Mid- and small-cap shares were also witnessing buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 0.7 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index climbed 0.8 per cent.
Among the individual shares, Vodafone Idea bounced back and rallied over 7 per cent to Rs 12.65 a day after its board decided to convert AGR related debt into equity.
Delta Corp advanced 3 per cent to Rs 291 after its profit jumped manifold to Rs 70 crore from Rs 1 crore during the same quarter last year.
Reliance Industries was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose nearly 3 per cent to Rs 2,524. Bajaj Finance, Hindalco, Mahindra & Mahindra, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ONGC, Bajaj Finserv, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, HDFC and Infosys also rose between 1-2 per cent.
On the flipside, Cipla, Titan, Divi's Labs, Tata Consultancy Services, UPL, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Shree Cements, Dr Reddy's Labs, Tata Consumer Products and Britannia Industries were among the losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,057 shares were advancing while 1,271 were declining on the BSE.
