Sensex Surges Over 450 Points, Nifty Ends Above 17,500 Led by Reliance

Indian equity benchmarks surged on Thursday as November futures and option contracts expired led by gains in index heavyweights like Reliance Industries, Infosys, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, ITC, Bharti Airtel and Tech Mahindra. The benchmarks opened lower but soon gave up intraday losses with Sensex rising as much as 758 points from the day's lowest level and Nifty 50 reclaimed its important psychological level of 17,500 after hitting an intraday low of 17,351.

The Sensex ended 454 points higher at 58,795 and Nifty 50 index rose 121 points to close at 17,536.

"If the Nifty is able to sustain above 17,500, it can go up to 17,600-17,700 levels. The momentum indicators like relative strength index (RSI) and moving averages convergence divergence (MACD) are indicating positive momentum in the market," said Vijay Dhanotiya, lead of technical research at CapitalVia Global Research.

Reliance Industries was the top Nifty gainer, the stock rose over 6 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 2,502 after its Board decided to implement a scheme of arrangement to transfer Gasification Undertaking into a wholly-owned subsidiary. Rally in Reliance shares added over 400 points towards gain in the Sensex, data from BSE showed.

Divi's Labs, Infosys, ITC, Dr Reddy's Labs, UPL, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, HCL Technologies, Tata Consumer Products, Cipla and Kotak Mahindra Bank also rose between 0.5-1 per cent.

On the flipside, Hindalco, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Shree Cements, Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra, Bajaj Finance, Eicher Motors, Bharat Petroleum, Bajaj Auto, Larsen & Toubro and Coal India were among the losers.