Sensex ends 231 points higher; financials, metals, FMCG up

Equity benchmarks closed at one & half months highs on the back of buying in financial, metal, FMCG and auto companies' shares along with Bharti Airtel, ONGC, TCS, Infosys, NTPC and L&T. The Nifty settled above 6050 level for first time since November 15, 2010 and the Sensex added more than 200 points on Wednesday after a big period consolidation.

Manas Jaiswal, Technical Analyst of manasjaiswal.com said the Nifty could test November high of 6308. "After taking support near 5700 mark, Nifty bounced back sharply and it was moving very much sideways for the last 6 to 7 trading sessions in the range of around 6020 and 5950 but today's move is encouraging and these are clear breakout of flag pattern. I think Nifty can test the November high of 6308," he explained.

Global markets were also quite supportive; Asian markets like Shanghai, Nikkei, Straits Times and Kospi rose 0.5-0.76%. Hang Seng rallied 1.5%. European markets like CAC and DAX were up 0.2-0.7%, at the time of closing of Indian equities.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 20,256.03, up 230.61 points or 1.15% and the Nifty rallied 64.35 points or 1.07% to settle at 6,060.35. Broader indices too gained; the BSE Midcap Index was up 0.5% and Smallcap up 1.1%.

All BSE sectoral indices ended in green; the BSE FMCG, Metal and Bank indices went up 1.5% each. Auto, Capital Goods, IT and Power were up 0.4-0.8%.

Bharti Airtel was the leader on Nifty today; surged 3.4% while Reliance Communications went down 0.5% on profit booking. Heavyweight ONGC was up 1%.