Sensex gains over 474 pts, Nifty marches towards 21,600 mark; PSU bank stocks in demand

The benchmark indices extended their uptrend and hit fresh intraday highs in mid-morning trade. The Nifty hovered near the 21,600 mark. PSU Bank stock recorded across the board buying.

At 11:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 474.36 points or 0.66% to 71,811.16. The Nifty 50 index advanced 149.75 points or 0.7% to 21,591.10.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index added 0.72% and the S&P BSE Small-Cap index gained 0.52%.

The market breadth remained strong. On the BSE, 2292 shares rose and 1310 shares fell. A total of 154 shares were unchanged.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty PSU Bank index rose 1.68% to 5,670.50. The index had lost 0.83% in the last two sessions.

Bank of Baroda (up 2.6%), Union Bank of India (up 1.92%), UCO Bank (up 1.91%), Bank of India (up 1.55%) and Indian Bank (up 1.45%) were the top gainers.

Among the other gainers were Canara Bank (up 1.34%), Indian Overseas Bank (up 1.28%), Punjab National Bank (up 1.24%), Bank of Maharashtra (up 1.22%) and State Bank of India (up 1.08%).

Stocks in Spotlight:

Amber Enterprises India added 3.45%. The company�s unit and Nexxbase Marketing-Noise Brand have incorporated a joint venture, `Stelltek Technologies`, with a shareholding ratio of 50:50, respectively, to carry on the business of manufacturing, assembling, and designing wearables and other smart electronics products.

Seamec rose 0.43%. The company signed an MoU with HAL Offshore for the charter hire of the offshore support vessel `Sea Pearl` for 3 years at a cost of $9.6 million.

Gabriel India added 0.99%. Puneet Gupta resigned as chief operating officer of a two- and three-wheeler business unit. Anand Dinkar Sontakke has been appointed to take his place.

India Glycols advanced 1.01%. The company has successfully added a further capacity of 100 KLPD to the existing grain-based distillery at the Kashipur (Uttarakhand) plant. The revised capacity of the plant is 400 KLPD and it is fully commissioned.

Global Markets:

Asian stocks rose broadly on Wednesday, tracking a rally from Wall Street as investors latched on to the year-end optimism driven by expectations that the Federal Reserve could begin cutting rates as early as next March.

The summary of opinions of the Bank of Japan�s December meeting showing that members of the central bank saw monetary policy remaining ultra-loose for the time being.

US stocks continued their positive momentum on Tuesday, with the Dow and broad-based S&P 500 both rising 0.4%, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 0.5%.

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