Indian shares rose on Wednesday after the country’s finance minister suggested she would not rule out further stimulus measures to aid an economic recovery, following poor reaction to an already announced package.

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The BSE Sensex ended 622 points higher at 30,818 while the Nifty rose 187 points to settle at 9,066. Gains were led by banking stocks and index heavyweights like RIL, L&T, and ITC.

Indian stocks have fallen sharply in recent sessions as investors viewed the government’s economic package as doing little to boost demand to revive an economy hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government would assess the need for further economic measures as the situation evolves, according to interviews to three financial dailies published on Wednesday.

On NSE, all sectoral indices ended the day in the green. Pharma index surged over 4 percent, Nifty Bank and Nifty Auto rose over 2 percent each. Nifty Fin Services was also up 3.6 percent and Nifty FMCG rose 1.5 percent for the day.

Among stocks, Dr Reddy's, HDFC, M&M, BPCL, and GAIL were the top gainers on the Nifty50 index while Bharti Infratel, IndusInd Bank, Hero MotoCorp, Vedanta, and Bharti Airtel led the losses.

Shares in Reliance Industries rose 2 percent as the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate’s rights issue, the country’s biggest, began on Wednesday. The RIL-RE shares were trading at Rs 202, roughly Rs 30 higher than the spread between the current market price of the stock and the rights issue price.

India has been under a two-month lockdown to curb the spread of the virus, which has hit the incomes of millions and starved companies of several weeks’ worth of revenues, dampening the growth outlook for Asia’s third-largest economy.

Coronavirus infections in India continued to rise steadily, reaching 1.06 lakh as of Wednesday - a jump of more than 5,600 from the day before - with deaths crossing 3,300.

First Published:May 20, 2020 3:37 PM IST