The Sensex briefly crossed the critical 60,000-point mark on Wednesday amid bullish trends throughout the globe and continuing inflows of foreign capital.

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In early trade, the Sensex was trading 141.62 points higher at 59,983.83. It quickly soared to 60,008.11 points, a 165.9 point increase. The Nifty rose 48.25 points to 17,873.50 points.

The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC, Hindustan Unilever, Bajaj Finance, Asian Paints, UltraTech Cement, Reliance Industries, and Bajaj Finserv while  Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, HDFC, and HDFC Bank were among the losers.

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Balrampur Chini Mills, Tata Chemicals Limited and Delta Corp are the stocks/securities that have been placed on the National Stock Exchange’s futures and options (F&O) ban for trade on Wednesday, August 17, 2022.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green with Nikkei 225 surging 284.01 points or 0.98% to 29,152.92, Straits Times added 11.82 points or 0.36% to 3,265.61, Hang Seng jumped 149.88 points or 0.76% to 19,980.40, Taiwan Weighted gained 1.63 points or 0.01% to 15,422.20 and Shanghai Composite was up by 9.14 points or 0.28% to 3,287.02, while KOSPI was down by 14.81 points or 0.58% to 2,518.71.

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Markets on Wall Street had ended mixed on Tuesday. The S&P 500 gained 0.2% for the third session in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 0.7%, extending its winning streak to five days. The Nasdaq fell 0.2%. The Russell 2000 slipped 0.82 points, or less than 0.1%, to 2,020.53.

On Tuesday, the Sensex rose 379.43 points, or 0.64%, to 59,842.21. The Nifty rose 127.10 points, or 0.72%, to 17,825.25.

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The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 1376.84 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 136.24 crore in the Indian equity market on August 16, as per provisional data available on the NSE.  

Separately, the international oil benchmark Brent crude was up 0.5% at USD 92.83 a barrel. The rupee rose 44 paise to 79.30 against the US dollar in early trade on Wednesday, owing to foreign fund inflows.