Provisional: Market breaks 7-day losing streak

Markets ended higher after fears over US scaling back its bond buying program receded for now

Benchmark indices closed higher on Thursday on hopes that scaling back of US bond buying program may not kick off as early as next month. Also, central banker Raghuram Rajan's attempt to talk up the rupee and calm equity and bond markets, a day earlier, too helped. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor, Raghuram Rajan, expressed comfort on Wednesday about core inflation and highlighted the narrowing current account deficit.

The sentiment on Thursday was largely boosted by US Federal Reserve's incoming boss -- Janet Yellen, who said the US economy and labour markets were functioning “far short of their potential and had to improve before the stimulus programme could be rolled back".  Yellen's comments suggested that the tapering of the US Federal Reserve's 85 billion a month bond buying program may not kick off earlier than expected. This gave a fresh boost to hopes of easy liquidity to continue its eastwards flow towards emerging markets such as India, facilitated by FIIs.

The 30-share Sensex closed 199 points or almost 1% higher at 20,393 levels and the broader 50-share Nifty surged 67 points higher to close at 6,056 levels.

The rupee rose to as high as 62.9525 to the dollar - its highest since November 11, recovering after tumbling to a two-month low of 63.90 on Wednesday.  It is currently trading at 63.26-a-dollar.