Market rallies after Budget speech! Sensex zooms nearly 500 points, Nifty50 regains 8,700

NEW DELHI: Indian investors took a sigh of relief after Finance Minster Arun Jaitley adhered to the path of fiscal prudence and left the long term tax rate (LTCG) and Short Term Tax rate (STCG) unchanged.

Benchmark indices, NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex, surged nearly 2 per cent on Wednesday on account of buying in frontline bluechip counters amid firm global cues.

The S&P BSE Sensex surged 485.68 points, or 1.76 per cent, to 28,141.64, while Nifty50 gained 155.10, or 1.81 per cent to 8,716.40, led by gains in ITC, ICICI Bank, HDFC, Tata Motors, SBI, Axis Bank, and L&T.

The Nifty50 reclaimed its crucial psychological level of 8,700 for the first time since October 24, 2016 led by gains in realty, power, oil & gas, capital goods, banks, and auto stocks.

Emami, DLF, Bosch, United Spirits and M&M stood among the major gainers on NSE.

Sectorwise, tobacco, beverages - alcoholic, finance, auto ancillaries, petrochemicals sector-related stocks remained among majors gainers on bourses today.

On NSE , Tarapur Trans, Arcotech Ltd, Bhandari Hosiery, RPP Infra Proj, National Fert touched their fresh 52-week high in today's trade.

Most active stocks of the day on NSE by turnover were Idea Cellular, ICICI Bank, ITC, SBI, DLF.

In the Nifty 500 index, 388 stocks were settled in green, while 112 were stock closed the day in red.

The S&P BSE realty index rose 4 per cent and was also the top sectoral gainer. The rally in the index was led by gains in DLF which rose 6 per cent, followed by DB realty which gained 5.1 per cent, and Godrej Properties rallied 4.4 per cent.

The S&P BSE Oil & gas sector was up 1.5 per cent, led by gains in IOC which rose 3.5 per cent, followed by GAIL India which gained 3.1 per cent, and HPCL which was up 2.9 per cent post the Budget speech.

The S&P BSE banking index was up 2.3 per cent, led by rally in ICICI Bank which rose 3.8 per cent, followed by Federal Bank gained 3.6 per cent, and SBI rallied 3.2 per cent post the Budget speech.