A three-day losing streak broken and how! Equity benchmarks had a good day of trade, with the Sensex closing 275 points higher, while the Nifty closed near 10,700-mark.

The market witnessed a last hour surge after Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee decided to hike repo rate to 6.25 percent. While the Street began the day on a flat note, a surge in the first couple of hours hinted that investors were possibly pricing in a rate hike from the policy.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has, for the first time in four years, hiked key repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 6.25 percent.

The MPC decided to increase it by a quarter percentage point on account of high inflation and firming crude oil prices.

The central bank also hiked the reverse repo rate to 6 percent.

The announcement by the central bank hence pushed up the market, led by banking, automobile names as well as midcaps. The Nifty midcap index was up over 1 percent. All other sectoral indices ended in the green.

The Sensex is up 275.67 points or 0.79% at 35178.88, while the Nifty is up 91.50 points or 0.86% at 10684.70\. The market breadth is positive as 1664 shares advanced, against a decline of 957 shares, while 136 shares were unchanged.

Airtel, Tata Motors, and Titan were the top gainers, while HDFC Bank, Asian Paints, Tech Mahindra and HPCL lost the most.