Sensex rises 375 points as banking, financial stocks surge; Nifty settles at 14,406

NEW DELHI: Equity indices surged on Thursday with the benchmark BSE sensex rising over 350 points led by gains in banking and financial stocks.
After tumbling over 500 points in opening trade, the 30-share BSE index finally settled 375 points or 0.79 per cent higher at 48,081.
The broader NSE Nifty settled 110 points or 0.77 per cent higher at 14,406.
Top gainers in the sensex pack included ICICI Bank, HDFC, Bajaj Auto, HDFC Bank, SBI and Kotak Bank with their shares rising as much as 3.6 per cent.
Titan, Tech Mahindra, HUL, Asian Paints and Nestle India were the major losers falling up to 2.75 per cent.
On the NSE platform, sub-indices Nifty Bank, Financial Services, Private Bank gained as much as 2.15 per cent.
V K Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services told news agency PTI that a storm-like resurgence of Covid cases is impacting the economy as well as market sentiments.
Localised lockdowns and severe restrictions on movements are sure to take a toll on the expected GDP growth for FY22, he added.
India's tally of Covid-19 cases soared by 314,835 over the previous 24 hours, the highest daily increase recorded anywhere. The previous record one-day rise in cases was held by the United States, at 297,430, in January.
Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors were net sellers in the capital market as they offloaded shares worth Rs 1,082.33 crore on Tuesday, according to provisional exchange data.
Stock exchanges were closed on Wednesday on account of ‘Ram Navami'.
(With inputs from agencies)