Sensex up 700 pts, Nifty tops 8,500

Thursday,   26-Mar-2020   09:54 AM (IST)

The Indian equity markets were trading higher, lifted by banks and IT stocks, on Thursday ahead of the monthly derivative contracts expiry. Investors were encouraged by reports that the US Senate has passed a $2 trillion coronavirus relief package while a separate report said the Indian government was likely to agree an economic stimulus package of more than Rs 1.5 trillion to fight the downturn caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Frontline index S&P BSE Sensex was up 709 points, or 2.5 per cent, at 29,204 levels, and the Nifty50 index hovered around 8,500 level, up 190 points, or 2.3 per cent. Among individual stocks, IndusInd Bank bucked its downtrend to surge 10 per cent in early deals. Besides, Axis Bank followed through yesterday's up move with 6 per cent gain. Information technology (IT) stocks Tech Mahindra and Infosys were both up over 4 per cent each. All the Nifty sectoral indices were trading in the green, led by Nifty IT index, up 3 per cent. Besides, Nifty Bank and Nifty Financial Services were also up over 2 per cent each. In the broader market, both the S&P BSE MidCap index and the S&P BSE SmallCap index gained over 2 per cent each.