Sensex rises over 200 points, Nifty reclaims 24,800 led by Infosys, ICICI Bank

Indian equity benchmarks surged on Thursday ahe of weekly expiry of Nifty futures and option contracts led by gains in heavyweight shares such as Infosys, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel and ITC. Sensex rose as much as 330 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intray high of 24,867 amid stable cues from global markets.

As of 9:21 am, Sensex was up 146 points at 81,057 and Nifty 50 index vanced 50 points to 24,820.

Most of Asian markets were tring higher with Japan's Nikkei rising 1.11 per cent, Australia's S&P ASX 200 gaining 0.24 per cent, South Korea's KOSPI vancing 0.13 per cent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng gaining 0.67 per cent.

Overnight, US markets ended higher after minutes of latest FOMC meet indicated strong case of rate cut in upcoming US Federal Reserve meet in September.

Dow Jones rose 0.14 per cent, tech heavy Nasdaq gained 0.57 per cent and S&P 500 vanced 0.42 per cent.

Back home, buying was visible across board as 10 of 13 sector gauges compiled by National Stock Exchange were tring higher led by Nifty Consumer Durables index's 0.8 per cent gain. FMCG, Oil & Gas, PSU Bank, Metal, IT and Bank indices also rose around 0.5 per cent each.

On or hand, select healthcare, pharma and auto shares were facing selling pressure.

Mid- and small-cap shares were tring in line with ir larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices rose around 0.5 per cent each.

Grasim Industries was top Nifty gainer, stock rose 1.73 per cent to Rs 2,731. Tata Consumer Products, Infosys, Asian Paints, Tech Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, IndusInd Bank, State Bank of India and Titan also rose between 0.5-1 per cent.

On flipside, Power Grid, Shriram Finance, Dr Reddy's Labs, Mahindra & Mahindra, Divi's Labs, Cipla and HDFC Life were among notable laggards.

overall market breth was positive as 2,312 shares were vancing while 718 were declining on BSE.