Mumbai: The benchmark BSE Sensex on Wednesday rose 192 points to its highest in near one-month at 27,837.21, as blue-chips HDFC, Wipro and TCS gained on resumption of buying by foreign investors amid prevailing rate cut hopes.
Sentiment was boosted on reports that foreign funds, which have been selling in the past several sessions, made purchases in yesterday's trade, equity brokers said.
The 30-share Sensex commenced the day higher at 27,749.30 and advanced to touch the day's high of 27,903.01. However, profit-booking at higher levels in some counters, trimmed some gains.
The index finally settled higher by 191.68 points or 0.69 percent at 27,837.21, a level last seen on April 22.
The broad-based 50-issue Nifty recaptured the 8,400-level by closing 57.60 points or 0.69 percent higher at 8,423.25. It shuttled between 8,440.35 and 8,391.45 during the session.
Forecast of a timely monsoon, coupled with the government containing fiscal deficit at 4 percent of the GDP for 2014-15 and continuing hopes of an RBI rate cut were other positive factors, brokers added.
Shares of HDFC were the top performer at the Sensex with a rise of 2.11 percent.
Besides, Tata Power climbed 1.78 percent as the company posted consolidated net profit of Rs 159.14 crore for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014-15.
Other major gainers were Wipro, TCS, HDFC Bank, RIL, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever, SBI, ICICI Bank, Sun Pharma, GAIL, Cipla, Bharti Airtel, Vedanta, NTPC, Maruti Suzuki and ITC.
However, selling in Bajaj Auto, Tata Steel, BHEL, Hindalco, Tata Motors, M&M, Dr Reddy's, Coal India, ONGC, Axis Bank and L&T capped index's rise, brokers said.
Sectorally, the BSE IT index gained the most by rising 1.78 percent, followed by teck (1.51 percent), bankex (0.86 percent), infra (0.75 percent), power (0.51 percent) and healthcare (0.34 percent).
Small-cap index also ended higher by 0.17 percent, while mid-cap index eased by 0.24 percent.
Meanwhile, FIIs bought shares worth Rs 48.06 crore in yesterday's trade as per provisional data.
Globally, a mixed trend was seen in other Asian markets, while European markets were mostly positive.
