It was a surprising close for the markets as the ended with some hefty gains. It was trading in green for major part of the day but surged in the final hour of trade. Buying was seen in telecom, banking, auto, metal, oil and technology stocks. The Sensex has crossed its 17000 mark and Nifty went above 5,100 mark.

On the macroeconomic front, inflation came in at 7.33% versus 7.14%; it is more or less inline with market expectations.

Telecom stocks were star performers of the day, on the back of good Q4 earnings from Bharti Airtel, India's largest telecom player, the stock up over 6% followed by Reliance Comm and Idea Cellular, which rose 5% and 4% respectively. Bharti Airtel has reported 10.3% growth in its Q4 consolidated net profit of Rs 1,898.9 crore as against Rs 1,722 crore in previous quarter and 12.9% growth in ints revenues of Rs 7,863.7 crore versus Rs 6,964 crore (QoQ).

Hero Honda is up over 3.5% after strong set of numbers declared yesterday.

Sensex closed up 404.90 points or 2.42% at 17125.98, and the Nifty up 111.85 points or 2.24% at 5111.70.

About 1334 shares have advanced, 1538 shares declined, and 206 shares are unchanged.

The BSE Midcap Index ended at 7,056.21 up 0.7%.

The BSE Smallcap Index ended flat at 8,727.72.

The BSE Bankex closed at 8,868.08 up 3%. HDFC, HDFC Bank, IOB, ICICI Bank, Centurion bank, Axis closed in green.

The BSE Capital Goods Index closed at 13,921.87 up 1%. Suzlon, Reliance Infra, Siemens, Triveni Engineering closed higher.

The BSE Auto Index closed at 4,603.56 up 0.7%. Hero Honda, Apollo Tyres, Escorts, Ashok Leyland closed higher.

The BSE Metal Index closed at 15,735.18 up 2.4%. SAIL, JSW Steel, Jindal Steel, Jindal Stainless, Hind Zinc closed higher.

The BSE FMCG Index closed up 1% at 2,407.00. Colgate, ITC, Nestle, Marico, HUL, Dabur ended higher.

BSE Oil and Gas Index closed at 11,554.59 up 1.6%. BPCL, HPCL, IOC, Reliance Natura, GAIL ended higher.

The BSE IT Index was at 3,862.48 up o.3%. Satyam, Infosys, Tech mahindra, TCS, Wipro, Tech Mahindra closed higher.

The NSE cash turnover was at Rs 14131.57 crore and the NSE F&O turnover was at Rs 33831.87 crore. The BSE cash turnover was Rs 6022.19 crore. Total market wide turnover was at Rs 53985.63 crore.