Sensex zooms 446 points to hit 17-month high, Nifty up 133 points

Mumbai: Market benchmark Sensex hit a nearly 17-month high Tuesday after surging 446 points to 28,978.02 and the Nifty zoomed 133.35 points led by heavy buying in auto and banking stocks on bullish overseas cues amid dimming hopes of an interest-rate hike by the US Fed this month.

Domestic markets, which opened today for the first time since Friday, reacted to a weak US jobs data released last week, diminishing hopes for a near-term US interest rate hike.

Moreover, rupee climbing to four-month highs against the dollar to trade at Rs 66.51 (intra-day), as Urjit Patel begun his innings as RBI Governor, too had a positive impact.

The 30-share BSE Sensex resumed higher and continued its upward journey to cross the 29,000-mark for the first time since April 15, 2015, and touched a high of 29,013.40 before concluding at 28,978.02, a significant gain of 445.91 or 1.56 percent. This was the biggest single-day gain since July 11, when it had gained 499.79 points.

The NSE Nifty again went past the 8,900-mark to touch a high of 8,950.85 and finally settled 133.35 points or 1.51 percent higher at 8,943.00.

The bourses had remained closed yesterday on account of 'Ganesh Chaturthi'.

The second-line stocks also witnessed heavy buying, lifting the mid-cap index by 1.84 percent and small-cap by 0.95 percent.

Sentiment also boosted after services sector growth touched the highest level in over three-and-a-half years of 54.7 in August from 51.9 in July.

Among sectoral indices, bankex topped by climbing 2.96 percent followed by consumer durables 2.94 percent, auto 2.83 percent, power 1.39 percent, realty 1.23 percent, metal 1.21 percent, oil&gas 1.04 percent and FMCG 0.97 percent.

Out of the 30-share Sensex pack, 25 scrips ended with gains, while 4 registered loss. Sun Pharma ended steady.

Elsewhere, Asian stocks ended higher with Japan's Nikkei rising 0.26 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.58 percent while Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.61 percent.

European markets also opened on a positive note. London's FTSE, Paris CAC 40 and Frankfurt's DAX 30, gained up to 0.3 percent in their early deals.