Sensex rallies 500 points, Nifty reclaims 8,700 as investors cheer Budget

The benchmark indices recovered the lost ground as finance minister Arun Jaitley made no reference to long-term capital gains tax on equities, and also set a comfortable fiscal deficit target of 3.2% for the fiscal year 2017-18. 

After the Budget speech, the S&P BSE Sensex gained over 400 points to reclaim 28,000 level, while Nifty50 surged above its crucial 8,650 mark.

At 3.05 pm BSE Sensex was up 481 points at 28,138 while the broader Nifty 50 index was quoting at 8,716, up 155 points.

In the broader market, the BSE Midcap and BSE Smallcap indices mirrored the gains in frontline indices to trade over 1% higher. 

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On BSE, 1,479 shares rose and 1,042 shares fell. A total of 109 shares were unchanged.

BSE Oil and Gas index rose 0.74% after Jaitley announced to create an integrated public sector oil major.

Upstream oil major ONGC was trading 0.47% up at Rs 203, while Oil India dipped 0.47%.

Stocks of oil marketing companies, IOC, BPCL and HPCL were trading higher by 1.67%, 0.53% and 2%, respectively. 

Shares of irrigation and fertiliser companies rose between 3% to 7% after Jaitley, in his Budget presentation said the agriculture sector is expected to grow at 4.1% in 2016-17 thanks to better monsoon.

Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals climbed as much as 7.3%, Coromandel International rose as much as 5.2%, while Madras Fertilizers and Jain Irrigation Systems gained 5% and 3%, respectively. 

Shares of real estate companies moved higher by up to 7% on a slew of budgetary stimulus to real estate sector.

Godrej Properties, Unitech, Oberoi Realty, DLF, Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL), Prestige Estates Projects from the realty index were up between 2% and 7% on the NSE.