F&O expiry: Nifty ends April series above 17,200; Sensex gains 702 pts

Equity markets climbed over 1 per cent on Thursday, the day of April F&O expiry, as investors indulged in short covering. An across the board rally pushed the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex 702 points higher at 57,521 level, while the Nifty50 settled at 17,245, up 207 points. 

This was, however, lower than their intra-day highs of 57,791 and 17,322, respectively. 

26 of the 30 Sensex constituents and 45 of the 50 Nifty constituents ended the day in the green led by HUL, HDFC Life, SBI Life, Asian Paints, UPL, PowerGrid, L&T, NTPC, SBI, and Infosys. 

In the broader markets, the BSE MidCap index added 0.86 per cent while the BSE Smallcap index edged only 0.19 pee cent higher.

Global markets

uropean stocks advanced on Thursday as investors reacted to a slew of earnings and continued to monitor developments in Ukraine, and Russia's next move on its gas supplies to Europe. The pan-European Stoxx 600 climbed 1 per cent in early trade, while Germany's DAX advanced 2 per cent. The UK's FTSE100 gained 0.9 per cent.

On Wall Street, Nasdaq Futures were up 2 per cent, while Dow Jones and S&P500 Futures added 1 per cent each. Earlier in Asia, Japan's Nikkei soared 1.7 per cent, South Korea's Kospi ended 1 per cent up, and China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.6 per cent.