Market rallies for 3rd straight day; Sensex jumps 216 points

Mumbai: Continuing its rising streak for the third session in a row, the BSE Sensex on Wednesday climbed by over 216 points on unabated buying in banking stocks amid strong foreign fund inflows and positive domestic cues.

The 30-share BSE index ended 216.51 points, or 0.58 per cent, higher at 37,752.17. The broader NSE Nifty closed with gains of 40.50 points, or 0.36 per cent, at 11,341.70.

In the Sensex pack, IndusInd Bank rallied 4.15 per cent. Other gainers included Yes Bank, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank, SBI, Bajaj Auto, RIL, HCL Tech, HDFC and ICICI Bank -- rising up to 3.67 per cent.

On the other hand, Bharti Airtel emerged as top loser with 4.08 per cent fall on the Sensex list. Other major laggards were Vedanta, Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, ONGC, Tata Motors, NTPC and Coal India -- shedding up to 3.48 per cent.

Sectorally, the BSE bankex, finance, realty and energy realty indices surged up to 1.42 per cent. While, BSE telecom, metal, power, teck and healthcare indices ended in the red, losing as much as 2.60 per cent.

Experts attributed the continuing market rally to robust investor sentiment driven by sustained foreign fund inflows, stronger rupee, among others. Strengthening gains, the Indian rupee Wednesday further appreciated by 24 paise to 69.47 against the US dollar intra-day.

On a net basis, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net of Rs 2,477.72 crore on Tuesday, provisional data available with BSE showed.

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.39 per cent, Shanghai Composite Index was down 1.09 per cent, Korea's Kospi dropped 0.41 per cent, and Japan's Nikkei ended 0.99 per cent lower. Similarly, in the Eurozone, Frankfurt's DAX slipped 0.05 per cent.

Paris CAC 40 rose 0.32 per cent and London's FTSE was up 0.04 per cent in early deals. Global crude benchmark Brent crude futures rose 0.33 per cent to USD 66.89 per barrel.