The Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange on Wednesday extended their gains from the morning session and ended the day in green. The Sensex closed more than 244 points higher at 31,955.54, while the Nifty was 72.45 points up at 9,899.60.

The gains come a day after the Sensex saw its biggest fall this year closing at 31,710.99. The bourse recovered on Wednesday after Hindustan Unilever reported better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter of the financial year. Thought this had led to fresh buying by investors in the morning trade, the company closed 5 points below at Rs 1,152.90 share per piece on the BSE.

Healthcare, banking, IT, public sector and oil and gas stocks also rose on both indices.

Aurobindo Pharma was the biggest gainer on Nifty closing 4.05% up, followed by Coal India (3%) and Bharti Airtel (2.99%). The top five losers on Nifty were Ultra Cement (-2.79%), ACC (-1.39%), Infratel (-1.26%), Ambuja Cement (-0.86%) and Infosys (-0.61%).

Shares of Bharti Airtel, ITC, Coal India, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Lupin surged on the 30-share index. Infosys, Hero Motocorp, HUL and HDFC have been the worst performers of the day on the Sensex.

All other Asian markets – the Hong Kong Hang Seng, the Taiwan TSEC 50, the Shanghai SE Composite Index and Japan’s Nikkei 225 – also surged on Wednesday.