The Sensex rose to a three-week high, led by smart rally in IT stocks on the BSE on Wednesday, following consumer confidence surge in the US, the largest market for software exporters.

The conference board's confidence index climbed to 54.1 in August, its first gain in last three months.

The Sensex on Wednesday opened with a positive gap of 75 points. The Sensex experienced a brief slippage and touched a low of 15,695, after a report on industrial output was declared.

The growth of six core infrastructure industries -- petroleum refinery, crude oil, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel,decreased to 1.8% in July, as against 5.1% a year ago, as petroleum refinery output acted as a drag on the sector.

However, the prevalent positive sentiment earlier in the day helped the markets to trade in the green for the rest of the day. The Sensex touched an intra-day high of 15,831, up 143 points and finally settled at 15,769, up 81 points.

The NSE Nifty settled at 4,680, up 21 points.

The BSE midcap and smallcap indices outperformed the broader market. The midcap index advanced over 1% to 5,800 and the smallcap index gained nearly 2% to close at 6,878.

The market breadth was positive -- out of 2,867 stocks, 1,941 advanced and 853 declined on Wednesday.

INDEX MOVERS...

Among the sectoral indices, IT index surged 3.5% to 4,272. Infosys [ Get Quote ] rallied over 4% to Rs 2,181. TCS [ Get Quote ] surged nearly 4% to Rs 548. Tech Mahindra [ Get Quote ] gained 3.5% at Rs 921. Wipro [ Get Quote ] added 2.5% to Rs 557.

Sterlite soared nearly 4% to Rs 680. Reliance Communications [ Get Quote ] gained nearly 2% to Rs 267.

Tata Motors [ Get Quote ], Tata Power [ Get Quote ] and DLF added around 1.5% each to Rs 498, Rs 1,334 and Rs 399, respectively.

Sun Pharma [ Get Quote ] and ACC also advanced 1.5% to Rs 1,208 and Rs 799, respectively.

Among the Nifty stocks, Axis Bank gained nearly 2% to Rs 933 and Suzlon [ Get Quote ] was up 1.5% to Rs 93.

...AND THE SHAKERS

Hindustan Unilever declined over 2% to Rs 262. HDFC Bank [ Get Quote ] shed 1.5% to Rs 1,459.

Hero Honda [ Images ] was down over 1% to Rs 1,497.

Among the Nifty losers, Jindal Steel and Ranbaxy [ Get Quote ] slipped 2.5% to Rs 3,175 and Rs 335, respectively.