Mumbai, Jan 23: Taking a cue from 75 basis point rate cut by the US Federal Reserve, the 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) today opened with a positive gap of 685 points at 17,415 and closed at 17,594.07, around 860 points more than its pervious mark of 16, 650 points.

Sensex witnessed its biggest ever intra-day gain at 1, 244 points around 2:00 p. m.

Midcap of the BSE gained 587 points, Smallcap 396 points and BSE-500 gained over 445 points.

Reliance Energy gained Rs 274, NTPC Rs. 27) and Satyam Rs 393.

SBI, TCS and Reliance rallied 8.5 per cent each to Rs 2,344, Rs 867 and Rs 2,555, respectively.

BHEL gained eight per cent and Bajaj Auto advanced 7.5 per cent.

Hindalco and Reliance Communications moved up 7 per cent each, and HDFC Bank and DLF added 6.5 per cent each. Grasim gained 5.8 per cent.

Mahindra & Mahindra and ITC rallied nearly five per cent, while Cipla, ACC and Tata Steel were up around four per cent.

The National Stock Exchange’s Nifty ended with a gain of 304 points at 5203.

Investors were happy and they were certain that the markets will improve over the next few days.

“The situation will improve in some days. And with the budget around the corner, things will improve for sure. The market will bounce back soon,”said Dhiraj, an investor.

While many expressed hope, others saw this as a buying opportunity to make further investments.

“It is a good opportunity for people to invest again and hopefully, this will make the Indian investor, retail investor, a little more mature, stronger and a better investor. Because, every fall has an opportunity (buying),” said Akash, another investor.

The Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) pulled out heavily in the last five days owning to losses and their outflows amounted to around three billion dollars. (ANI)