Sensex gains over 400 pts; IT majors lag

IT majors, Gail India and Tata Steel are the only losers among Sensex-30

Markets continue to trade firm with the benchmark indices gaining over 2% as rupee recovered against the dollar after country's new central bank governor unveiled fresh measures to shore up the rupee and aid overseas inflows.

At 1120 hrs, the Sensex was up 402 points at 18,970 and the Nifty gained 134 points to trade at 5,582. At the same time, the Rupee is quoting at 66.08 per Dollar.

The broader markets too gained with the mid and smallcap indices gaining 1-1.3%.

In Asia,  stocks rose to three-week highs on Thursday as Indian shares and the rupee rallied a day after the country's new central bank chief unveiled a raft of measures to support the currency and banking sector.

But worries the U.S. Federal Reserve will soon scale back stimulus kept markets in check. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan advanced 0.7 percent, reaching highs not seen since August 19.

Tokyo's Nikkei was flat, taking a bit of a breather after stretching to a one-month peak.

Back home, on the sectoral front, the only laggards were IT and technology, down 1.5-2.3%.

Among the gainers were banks, Consumer Durables, FMCG, Realty, PSU, Capital Goods and Oil & Gas indices which gained between 2-7%.

The movers in the financial space were ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC and SBI up 5-7%.

From the FMCG space, ITC and HUL gained 2-5%.

Auto stocks - Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto added 1.5-3%.

The other notable gainers were ONGC, L&T,BHEL, NTPC and Coal India up 2-4%.

All the IT scrips- TCS, Infosys and Wipro were down 2% each.

Gail India and Tata Steel down 0.7-1% were the only other names in the red.

The market breadth was very positive. 1,199 stocks advanced while 554 stocks declined on the BSE.