The Indian benchmark indices closed with modest gains on Thursday, remaining calm in response to the unchanged monetary policy stance of the US Federal Reserve.

Sensex closed with a gain of 128 points, or 0.17%, at 74,611.11 while the Nifty settled at 22,648.20, up 43 points, or 0.19%.

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After opening 91 points lower at 74,391.73, the Sensex traded in the green for most of the day, rising as much as 330 points in the intraday session to the day’s high of 74,812.43.

The Nifty 50 opened at 22,567.85 against its previous close of 22,604.85 and touched its intraday high of 22,710.50 during the session.

The stock market erased opening losses and traded higher throughout the session with Nifty crossing 22,700 led by buying seen across the sectors except realty and banking. The second-half selling pressure erased some of the intraday gains.

On the Nifty 50 index, the top gainers were the BPCL (up 4.61%), Power Grid (up 3.71%) and Asian Paints (up 3.20%).

While the shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank (down 2.83%), Tata Consumer (down 1.43%), and Bharti Airtel (down 1.38%) ended as the top losers.

In the sectoral analysis, the Nifty Auto and Metal indices rose over a per cent each while Oil and Gas and Pharma indices rose about a per cent each. Nifty Media fell 1.58%, ending as the top loser among sectoral indices. Nifty Bank fell 0.34%.

The Bank Nifty witnessed follow-through selling pressure and closed in the red, down by 166 points.

Among individual stocks, a volume spike of more than 400 per cent was seen in Dabur, Indiamart Intermesh, and Bosch.

A long build-up was seen in Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company, REC, and Indiamart Intermesh, while a short build-up was seen in Godrej Properties, IGL, and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Notably, the shares of oil marketing companies Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp, and Hindustan Petroleum Corp surged 2-7% in the early trade tracking a slump in prices of Brent crude to its lowest levels in two months.

The BSE Midcap index hit its fresh all-time high of 42,564.25 during the session. The index closed 0.91 per cent higher at 42,503.13.

The BSE Smallcap index closed 0.29 per cent higher at 47,451.13.

The overall market capitalisation of the firms listed on the BSE rose to nearly Rs 408.5 lakh crore against Rs 406.6 lakh crore in the previous session.

On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve kept the federal funds rate unchanged at 5.25-5.50% for the sixth consecutive time. The policy outcome did not significantly impact the stock market as it was in line with market expectations.

Maintaining the status quo on rates, the Fed rejected any possibility of a rate hike in the near future while also avoiding giving clear signals on rate cuts.

S&P 500 contracts climbed 0.6%, with Apple, Amazon.com Inc. and Nvidia Corp. posting small gains in pre-market trading.

In Europe, stocks had small moves amid mixed company reports. The Hang Seng Index jumped more than 2%, putting it on track to enter a technical bull market.