The Sensex and Nifty ended higher by nearly 0.5 per cent, tracking Asian peers, with financial stocks such as ICICI Bank contributing most of the gains on the indexes.

The final US presidential debate between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump also weighed on market sentiment, as Trump suggested that he might reject the outcome of the November 8 presidential election if he loses, a possibility Clinton called “horrifying.”

The 30-share BSE index Sensex was up 145.47 points or 0.52 per cent at 28,129.84 and the 50-share NSE index Nifty was up 40.3 points or 0.47 per cent at 8,699.40.

Among BSE sectoral indices, banking index gained the most by 1.42 per cent, metal 1.36 per cent, infrastructure 1.14 per cent and realty 0.98 per cent. On the other hand, healthcare index was down 0.35 per cent, IT 0.25 per cent, FMCG 0.1 per cent and auto 0.04 per cent.

Top five Sensex gainers were Adani Ports (+5.1%), ICICI Bank (+4.72%), State Bank of India (+2.02%), HDFC (+1.26%) and L&T (+1.23%), while the major losers were Lupin (-0.78%), HUL (-0.64%), Tata Motors (-0.54%), Sun Pharma (-0.49%) and Infosys (-0.45%).

Investors await further quarterly results, with Reliance Industries Ltd slated to report later in the day.

Global markets

Stock markets inched higher but the Mexican peso was mixed after the third and final US presidential debate, which was judged to have given no clear boost to Donald Trump’s hopes of winning the White House.

Asian stocks advanced on Thursday, propelled by strong US earnings and oil prices near a 15-month high, as the third and final US presidential debate before the November 8 election ended.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei extended gains to 1 per cent.

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