Market Wrap, April 30: Here's all that happened in the markets today

Indian equity market soared on Thursday, the last day of the futures & options (F&O) contracts of April series, as encouraging early results from a Covid-19 treatment trial boosted investor sentiment.

Buying was witnessed across the board with stocks such as Tata Motors, Vedanta, and Hindalco leading the charge.
 

The S&P BSE Sensex rallied an impressive 997 points or 3 per cent to 33,718 levels. Of 30 constituents, 26 ended in the green and rest 4 in the red.

ONGC (up over 13 per cent) emerged as the biggest gainer on the index, followed by HCL Tech (up 11 per cent), Hero MotoCorp (up 9 per cent), and NTPC (up 6 per cent).
 

On the contrary, Sun Pharma (down nearly 3 per cent) ended as the top loser. HUL ,too, ended over 1.6 per cent lower at Rs 2,195.70 ahead of its March quarter results due later in the day.

NSE's headline index Nifty surged 307 points or over 3 per cent to settle at 9,860.
 

On a weekly basis, Sensex zoomed 7.6 per cent and Nifty jumped 7.7 per cent.
 

In the broader market, the S&P BSE MidCap index rallied 1.46 per cent to 12,013 levels and the S&P BSE SmallCap index gained over 1 per cent to 11,102-mark.
 

On the sectoral front, metal stocks advanced the most with the Nifty Metal index surging 8 per cent to 1,859.90 levels. Nifty Auto index was second on the list - up 6.45 per cent to 5,901 levels.
 

Markets will remain closed on Friday on account of Maharashtra Day.
 

Global Markets
 

World stocks headed for their best month on record on Thursday, as encouraging early results from a COVID-19 treatment trial and expectations of more European Central Bank (ECB) stimulus later in the day helped ease the pain of February and March.

Europe saw a cautious start.
 

A 1.4 per cent rise in MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares, excluding Japan, has it tracking toward a weekly gain of more than 5 per cent, its best in three weeks. Japan's Nikkei jumped 2.8 per cent to a seven-week high.
 

In commodities, oil prices jumped, lifted by signs that the US crude glut is not growing as quickly as expected and of a rise in fuel demand, which has been crushed by the coronavirus. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures climbed to $17.11 a barrel, up 13.6 per cent or $2.05 at the time of writing of this report.

The US benchmark surged 22 per cent on Wednesday.