Domestic equity indices were trading with gains in Wednesdays trade ahead of the Union Budget as expectations were rife that the government will announce measures to restart the engines of economic growth.A sharp decline in crude oil prices for the last six days also helped the sentiments on the D-Street.
Brent Crude futures have skid 9 per cent from January 20 level.BSE benchmark Sensex gained 256 points to 41,223, while its NSE counterpart Nifty jumped 84 points to 12,140.
Broader market indices were in line with their headline peers.
Nifty Smallcap advanced 0.64 per cent to 6,378 while Nifty Midcap rallied 0.95 per cent to 18,406.
Nifty 500 added 0.67 per cent to 10,023.India VIX, barometer of volatility, skid 3.12 per cent to 16.75 in the opening trade.Among sectoral indices on NSE, barring Nifty Pharma, all indices were in the green.
Nifty Metal was the biggest gainer, up 1.55 per cent at 2,683.
Nifty Auto and Nifty Realty also added over 1 per cent each.In the 30-share pack Sensex, except HDFC and TCS, all stocks were in the green.
Tata Steel was the biggest gainer, up 2.36 per cent to Rs 456.80.
Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries were other major gainers on the index.Asian shares erased earlier gains swinging into negative territory as a spike in new Chinese virus cases sent Hong Kong stocks tumbling and fuelled fears about the economic impact of the outbreak.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan skid 0.52 per cent.
Hong Kong shares fell 2.8 per cent on their first session after a two-and-a-half trading day break for Lunar New Year, led by declines in financial services, real estate, and consumer goods companies.However, Australian shares rose 0.57 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei stock index advanced 0.4 per cent, partly because investors in these markets have already had a chance to react to the virus outbreak, which has claimed more than 100 lives.