Mumbai: A day after Union Budget 2016-17 was announced, a benchmark index of Indian equities markets, the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex), on Tuesday surged up and was trading 718.55 points up at 23, 720 points around 02:40 pm.
The wider 50-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) was also trading 218.05 points up at 7,205 points.
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The surge was mainly due to gains in Asian markets as China eased monetary policy, and the government's comfortable fiscal deficit target for FY17.
The Sensex of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 23,153.32 points, was trading at 23,192.98 points (at 9.16 a.m.) in the early session, up 190.98 points or 0.83 percent from the previous day`s close at 23,002.00 points.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's decision to stay on the fiscal consolidation path raised optimism of a rate reduction by RBI to spark private investment and boost growth.
Sentiment remained upbeat after the Union Budget provided a higher outlay for infrastructure and farming sectors.
Fund managers lapped up mid-cap and small-cap shares too.
Among those that gained were ITC 7.98 percent, ICICI Bank 5.47 percent, Hero MotoCorp 5.11 percent, Maruti 4.62 percent, GAIL 3.96 percent, Axis Bank 3.16 percent and Wipro 3 percent.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) remained sellers as they net sold shares worth Rs 2,018.02 crore yesterday, provisional data from stock exchanges showed.
Asian markets ruled higher after China's central bank cut further the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 percent in an attempt to calm investor jitters. US stocks closed lower yesterday on late-day selling as investors shrugged off oil price rise and off-loaded energy and healthcare shares.
With PTI inputs
