Mumbai, Aug 26 (UNI) Indian benchmark indices gained a day after US Fed indicated possible interest rate cut next month with the BSE Sensex rising 612 points to close at 81698 on overall buying in large cap shares in the IT, realty and FMCG sectors.

NSE Nifty also registered a gain of over 187 points to close above the 25k market at 25010.60.

The market opened on a positive note and the Sensex zoomed over 738 points during intraday trading to touch day’s high of 81,824 before settling at 81,698.11 up 612 points. The Nifty also continued to trade above 25k mark and touched day’s high of 25043, which is just 35 points away from all-time high.

Traders indicated that the market will continue to be in positive zone as both Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) are in the buying spree. This has been strengthened further after the US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday that the time had come to lower the main interest rate from a two-decade high.

FIIs had bought equities in the cash segment worth Rs 1944 crore while the DIIs had bought to the tune of Rs 2896 crore in the last trading session on Friday, according to data available.

Mid and smallcap indices on the BSE also gained, but they underperformed the benchmark Sensex. The BSE Midcap index closed 0.66 percent and the BSE Smallcap index ended 0.20 percent higher.

According to initial estimates, the investors community became richer by little over Rs 2 lakh crore in a single session today.

Among the top gainers were HCL Tech (up 4.24 percent), Hindalco (up 3.96 percent) and NTPC (up 3.22 percent) in the Nifty 50 index. While the losers of the day included shares of Apollo Hospitals (down 1.18 percent), Hero MotoCorp (down 0.74 percent) and Adani Ports (down 0.69 percent).

In the 30-scrips BSE Sensex, shares of 21 companies advanced from their previous close while that of 9 companies ended in the red.

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