It was a trail-blazing show by stock markets as the BSE benchmark Sensex surged nearly 440 points to touch a lifetime high of 33,651.52 and the NSE index Nifty jumped 114.5 points to 10,449.80 as India jumped up 30 notches into the top 100 rankings on the World Bank’s ‘ease of doing business’ index.

“The significant jump this year is a result of the Indian government’s consistent efforts over the past few years and India’s endeavour to strengthen its position as a preferred place to do business,” Annette Dixon, Vice President, South Asia region at the release of ‘Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs’ had said on Tuesday.

Domestic sentiment was also buoyed as the eight core industries grew 5.2 per cent in September this year led by a sharp expansion in coal and refinery production. The last time core sector growth peaked was in March 2017, when it expanded by a similar 5.2 per cent.

At 2.45 p.m., the 30-share BSE index Sensex was up 418.71 points or 1.26 per cent at 33,631.84 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 107.90 points or 1.04 per cent at 10,443.20.

Among BSE sectoral indices, realty index was the star-performer and was up 3.66 per cent, followed by banking 2.08 per cent, metal 1.9 per cent and FMCG 1.39 per cent. On the other hand, consumer durables index was down 0.45 per cent, followed by IT 0.13 per cent, auto 0.08 per cent and healthcare 0.07 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were Bharti Airtel (+7.51%), ICICI Bank (+4.88%), State Bank of India (+4.09%), HDFC (+3.01%) and Axis Bank (+2.53%), while the major losers were Dr Reddy's (-2.26%), PowerGrid (-1.41%), TCS (-1.08%), Sun Pharma (-0.96%) and Asian Paints (-0.35%).

FDI inflows

The World Bank has raised hopes of continued foreign direct investment inflows into the country.

“It's a combination of liquidity, global markets plus the ease of business report which is playing out,” said Gautam Duggad, head of research - institutional equities, Motilal Oswal.

Asian shares looked set to extend their gains into a fourth straight day on Wednesday on the back of solid economic growth, while oil prices were on a bull run on hopes of an extension of output cuts by major oil producers.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia–Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3 per cent in early trade while Japan’s Nikkei gained 1.0 per cent.

Wall Street’s three major indexes ticked up on Tuesday to end October with their biggest monthly gains since February.

(With inputs from Agencies)