Buy or sell stocks, April 19 -- Following strong global markets' bias, the Indian stock market ended higher for the fourth straight session on Thursday. The Nifty 50 index gained 414 points and closed at 23,851, the BSE Sensex surged 1508 points and closed at 78,553, and the Bank Nifty index went up 1172 points and closed at 54,290. In a holiday-truncated week, Nifty was up 4.48%, the highest weekly rise since the week ended 5th Feb 2021. All sectoral indices ended the day in the green, with Nifty Bank, Financial Services, PSU Banks, and Pharma sectors leading the gains.

While the benchmark indices saw substantial gains on the weekly expiry, the broader market indices underperformed. The Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indices ga...