Nifty surges 80 pts to hit three-week high

Equities staged a big comeback, primarily driven by narrowing of the current account deficit, with the benchmark Nifty rebounding over 80 points to end at 7,865.95 - its highest level in three-weeks.
Extremely bullish sentiment across the globe, after overnight data showed that the US economy grew at a fairly healthy pace in the third quarter, predominantly provided the catalyst for the rally.
Renewed buying interest by foreign funds also boosted investors' mood.
After a strong start to trade, key indices maintained its strong upside momentum throughout the day, tracking a firming trend in Asia in line with overnight gains at US and European markets. Buying was seen in almost all sectors.

The pause in oil and metal prices after recent sharp falls amid hopes of more policy measures from China to stimulate its flagging economy also appears to have helped equity markets across the the region, a trader said.
On the macro front, contraction in trade deficit narrowed the country's current account deficit (CAD) to 1.6 per cent of GDP at USD 8.2 billion in the September quarter.

The 50-share Nifty opened with a gap up at 7,830.45 and surged ahead to hit an intra-day high of 7,871.45 before ending at 7,865.95 with a massive gain of 79.85 points, or 1.03 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, metal and resources zoomed (2.20 per cent), followed by pharma (1.81 per cent), energy (1.21 per cent), realty (1.21 per cent), tech (0.90 per cent), Nifty bank (0.80 per cent), fmcg (0.40 per cent) and auto (0.14 per cent). Mid-cap and Small-cap too rose 0.50 per cent each.
Major gainers included Sun Pharma, Bharti Artel, Gail, Reliance, Infosys, HDFC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, TCS, ONGC, L&T, HUL, Tata Steel, SBI, Vedanta, Hindalco and Yes Bank.
The notable losers were M&M, Asian Paints, Tech-M, ACC and Bajaj Auto.
Meanwhile, shares of drug maker Alkem Laboratories and diagnostic chain Dr Lal Pathlabs made a dream debut at the bourses.

Turnover in cash segment jumped to Rs 15,595.19 crore compared to Rs 13,624.37 crore yesterday. A total of 8,108.76 lakh shares changed hands in 64,30,478 trades.
The market capitalisation of NSE stood at Rs 97,21,861 crore.