Sensex moves up 478 points, realty and banking stocks surge

Equity benchmark indices witnessed a strong momentum on Tuesday with realty and banking stocks making a comeback.

The BSE S-P Sensex closed 478 points or 1.26 per cent higher at 38,528 while the Nifty 50 gained by 138 points or 1.23 per cent at 11,385.

Except for Nifty pharma which dipped marginally, all sectoral indices at the National Stock Exchange were in the green with Nifty realty gaining by 4 per cent, private bank by 2.2 per cent financial service by 1.9 per cent and auto by 0.9 per cent.

Among stocks, realty major DLF ticked up by 6.7 per cent to close at Rs 157.05 per share on reports of improvement in consumer sentiment.

Suntech Realty gained by 7.5 per cent while Godrej Properties was up by 2.2 per cent.

Banking majors Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank advanced by 3 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries too lifted the market sentiment by advancing 1.3 per cent at Rs 2,118.75 per share.

Grasim was up by 6.5 per cent, JSW Steel by 3.2 per cent and Titan by 2.1 per cent.

However, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, Cipla and Sun Pharma traded with a negative bias.