Nifty extends gains; Axis Bank, Tata Motors top gainers

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty extended gains to 1.5% in the afternoon trade, supported majorly by ICICI Bank and State Bank of India. Infosys, L&T and Tata Motors too were quite supportive. However, Wipro remained top loser, falling more than 1%.

The BSE benchmark rose 239 points to 17,077.86 and the NSE benchmark was up 77 points to 5,176.65. France's CAC, Germany's DAX and Britain's FTSE were up around 0.5%.

Top commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors topped the buying list, shooting up 4%. Country's largest lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank climbed nearly 4% ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy review for the June quarter. Private sector lender Axis Bank surged over 4%.

Engineering and construction major Larsen & Toubro and state-owned power equipment manufacturer gained 3% each. Infrastructure companies like Reliance Infrastructure and JP Associates were up nearly 4%.

Infosys, India's No. 2 software services exporter Infosys rose 2.6% and top telecom operator Bharti Airtel was up 1%. Shares of M&M, Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, NTPC, Cipla, Jindal Steel and Tata Power moved up around 2%.

Oil & gas producer Reliance Industries went up 1% and cigarette major ITC was up 0.7%.

In the second line shares, Oriental Bank, Shree Global, IRB Infrastructure, Jet Airways and Sobha Developer shot up 5.5-8% whereas Responsive Industries, Elantas Beck, Glodyne Tech, Redington and Puravankara Projects lost 4.7-7%.