Mumbai: Equity benchmarks maintained their winning momentum for the third session running on Thursday, buoyed by a bullish trend in Asian markets and state election results being in line with expectations.
Equity investors have become richer by over Rs 10.83 lakh crore as stocks extended their rising streak for the third consecutive session.
The 30-share BSE Sensex opened on a firm footing and zoomed over 1,500 points in intra-day trade, before paring some gains to end at 55,464.39, up 817.06 points or 1.50 per cent.
Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty jumped 249.55 points or 1.53 per cent to close at 16,594.90.
Hindustan Unilever Ltd hogged the limelight in the Sensex pack, surging 5.17 per cent, followed by Tata Steel, SBI, IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Nestle and Maruti Suzuki.
Only three counters ended in the red — Tech Mahindra, Dr Reddy's Laboratories and TCS, slipping up to 1.28 per cent.
In the broader market, the BSE smallcap and midcap indices jumped as much as 1.18 per cent.
All BSE sectoral indices settled in the green, with FMCG, realty, metal and bank climbing up to 2.68 per cent.
A total of 2,433 stocks advanced, while 929 declined and 98 remained unchanged on the BSE.
Asian markets followed Wall Street higher as crude oil prices retreated from multi-year highs, while Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers began talks in Turkey.
However, European stock exchanges were trading lower in the afternoon session.
Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude jumped 4.91 per cent to $ 116.6 a barrel.
Foreign institutional investors continued their selling spree in Indian markets as they offloaded shares worth Rs 4,818.71 crore on a net basis on Wednesday, according to exchange data.