Indian markets ended higher for the third day on Thursday. Both Sensex and Nifty traded above 6-month high. At the close, the benchmark 30-share index, BSE Sensex added 485.51 or 1.88% at 26,366.68 with 22 components registering rise. Meanwhile, the broad based NSE Nifty went up by 134.75 or 1.70% at 8,069.65 with 39 components posting rise.

Major gainers in the 30-share index were Larsen & Toubro (14.04%), State Bank Of India (4.91%), Bharat Heavy Electricals (4.73%), Axis Bank (3.35%), Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (3.09%), and ICICI Bank (2.67%).

On the other hand, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (0.61%), Cipla (0.57%), GAIL (India) (0.31%), Reliance Industries (0.27%), NTPC (0.25%), and Wipro (0.23%) were the major losers in the Sensex.

Market breadth was negative with 1,377 advances against 1,127 declines.

Larsen & Toubro topped the value chart on the BSE with a turnover of Rs. 2,486.47 million. It was followed by D F M Foods (Rs. 1,140.23 million), Ujjivan Financial Services (Rs. 697.29 million) and Britannia Industries (Rs. 582.25 million).

The volume chart was led by Unitech with trades of over 13.82 million shares. It was followed by Spicejet (8.00 million), Jaiprakash Associates (6.55 million) and PMC Fincorp (4.37 million).