Sensex surges over 200 points as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presents Budget

The benchmark BSE Sensex surged 200 points and was traind at 36,152.44 as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha.

The 30-share BSE index, which had lost 318.23 points in the previous two sessions, had recovered 171.38 points, ahead of the Budget presentation.

Similarly, the NSE Nifty moved up to 11,086.10.

Fresh positions created by retail and domestic institutional investors on hopes of an investor-friendly and growth-oriented budget lifted the sentiment, brokers said.

Besides, positive leads from other Asian markets, tracking overnight gains on the Wall Street following the Federal Reserve's decision to keep rates unchanged, influenced sentiments here, they said.

On the macro front, growth of the eight core sectors slowed to a five-month low of 4 per cent in December 2017 due to negative performance of segments like coal and crude oil, official data showed on Wednesday.

In Asian trade, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.24 per cent while Japan's Nikkei edged higher by 1.28 per cent in early trade on Thursday. Shanghai Composite Index, however, shed 0.97 per cent.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.28 per cent higher on Wednesday.