NEW DELHI: Equity indices surged on Wednesday with the benchmark BSE sensex rising over 1,000 points and the broader NSE Nifty up more than 250 points in extended trading session.
The 30-share BSE index soared 1,030 points or 2.07 per cent to close at 50,782; while Nifty moved 274 points or 1.86 per cent to settle at 14,982.
Top gainers in the sensex pack included Axis Bank, HDFC twins (HDFC, HDFC Bank), ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance and SBI with their stocks up as much as 5.23 per cent.
On the NSE platform, except for Nifty IT, all other sub-indices finished in green with Nifty Bank and Private Bank up as much as 3.87 per cent.
BSE and NSE decided to extend trading hours till 5 pm after the National stock exchange faced technical glitches earlier in the day. "All other markets timings will remain as normal," a message on BSE website showed.
NSE had informed that it shut all market segments at 11.40 am due to technical issue with telecom links which impact their system.
Trading will be restored once issue is resolved, the exchange had assured.
However, trades continued smoothly in all segments on benchmark sensex, the index informed.
"The NSE outage is unfortunate, especially for this long. Global exchanges should have adequate backups to ensure that even if there is an outage it's restored fast," Sandip Sabharwal, a Mumbai-based fund manager told news agency Reuters.
NSE has faced technical glitches on earlier occasions as well. In June 2020, its bank option segment prices were not reflecting on the terminal linked to the exchange.
In September 2019 too, the bourse's system faced a trading outage as investors were unable to place orders in the final minutes of the trade.
The stock exchange had also faced a glitch in 2017 that led to a five-hour-long shutdown, prompting the market regulator to call for a review of the bourse's contingency plans.
The NSE, headquartered in Mumbai, is the world's largest derivatives bourse by volume and the third-largest stock exchange globally in terms of the number of equity trades, according to its annual report.
(With inputs from agencies)