Bargain hunting bailed out markets today as the NSE Nifty rebounded by around 33 points, taking comfort from a positive close in Asia despite contagion fears of the Brexit fallout looming large.
Strong buying lifted the benchmark Nifty above the key psychological 8,100-mark on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) here.
Short-covering ahead of monthly expiry in derivatives on Thursday along with stable rupee, too supported sentiment.
Overcoming initial hiccups, bourses made a strong comeback in mid-afternoon trade as investors sensed buying opportunity at existing levels after steep price correction.
Though cautiously optimistic, traders preferred to stay on the sidelines as the fallout of the Brexit vote continues to create uncertainty.
Meanwhile, barring Hang Seng, most regional bourses ended firmly higher as investors' risk appetite improved after the Brexit battering last week as US stock index futures indicted a higher start to Wall Street trade.
European markets were also trading sharply higher after two days of drubbing ahead of the scheduled two-day European Council meet.
The 50-share index ended a tad higher at 8,096.05 and hovered between 8,146.35 and 8,086.85 before concluding at 8,127.85, a rise of 33.15 points or 0.41 per cent.
On sectoral front, FMCG outperformed peers with the key indices rallying 2.07 per cent largely attributed to good monsoon rains. It was followed by realty (1.04 per cent), infra (0.95 per cent), metal (0.94 per cent), pharma (0.65 per cent), energy (0.48 per cent), bank (0.27 per cent) and auto (0.16 per cent).
However, IT took another 1.2 per cent hit, extending its slide for the third straight day.
The biggest gainers were ITC, HDFC, HUL, Bharti Infra, Bosch, Lupin, Idea, HDFC Bank, Eicher Motors, M&M, Maruti, Bharti Airtel, L&T, Grasim, Cipla, BPCL and Reliance.
Notable losers included Tata Motors, TCS, Infosys, HCL Tech, Sun Pharma, SBI, Wipro, Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto.
A total of 1,043 scrips rose, 530 dropped while 66 were unchanged.
Turnover in cash segment dropped to Rs 17,067.78 crore from Rs 16,349.78 crore yesterday. A total of 9,556.72 lakh shares changed hands in 78,03,473 trades.
The market capitalisation of NSE stood at Rs 98,84,434 crore.
