Markets rise on value buying, positive Wall Street cues

REUTERS - India's stock markets rose nearly 1 percent on Thursday, looking to snap out of three straight sessions of losses as investors bought beaten down stocks while upbeat U.S. markets overnight also improved sentiment.

Wall Street stocks jumped almost 2 percent on Wednesday in the latest volatile session as investors weighed the impact of a stumbling Chinese economy and global market turmoil on the Federal Reserve's impending decision about when to raise interest rates.

"Two reasons why the market is up - one is it was oversold and (the other is) positive U.S. cues," said Alex Mathews, head of research at Geojit BNP Paribas.

The benchmark BSE Sensex gained 0.85 percent, while the broader Nifty rose 1 percent.

All sectors were in the green except for export-related IT stocks.

After three torrid sessions, financial shares were leading the gains.

Housing Development Finance Corp gained 3.5 percent, Axis Bank rose 2.9 percent while HDFC Bank was up 1.3 percent.

Tata Motors rose 3.3 percent while Maruti Suzuki gained 2.6 percent.

Ambuja Cements was up 4 percent after Nomura upgraded the stock to "buy" from "neutral".

Among IT stocks, TCS fell 0.5 percent while Infosys lost 0.38 percent.

(Reporting by Karen Rebelo in Mumbai; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)