Equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty ratcheted higher on Friday, boosted by heavy buying in Infosys, banking and finance stocks amid a rally in global stock markets.
After soaring nearly 1,200 points intra-day, the 30-share BSE Sensex gave up some gains to close 684.64 points or 1.20 per cent higher at 57,919.97.
On similar lines, the broader NSE Nifty climbed 171.35 points or 1.01 per cent to end at 17,185.70.
Infosys topped the Sensex gainers' chart, spurting 3.82 per cent, a day after the country's second largest IT services firm posted a better-than-expected 11 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 6,021 crore for the September quarter and announced buyback of shares worth Rs 9,300 crore.
HDFC Bank, HDFC, HCL Technologies, Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, Larsen & Toubro and Bajaj Finance were among the other prominent winners. In contrast, Mahindra & Mahindra, Asian Paints, Reliance Industries, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, PowerGrid and Maruti featured among the laggards, shedding up to 1.40 per cent.
“Due to profit-booking in the late afternoon session, Indian equity markets reduced some of their gains but kept trading in the green. Stocks in the banking and IT sectors saw purchasing activity,” said Mohit Nigam, Fund manager & Head - PMS, Hem Securities.
On the global market front, Asian equities ended in the green after US stocks pulled off an amazing reversal to close significantly higher overnight, Nigam added.