New Delhi, Jan 5 (IANS): After a marginal decline in early trade primarily due to profit booking, Indian equity market traded in the green later in the day and settled higher on Wednesday.

Accordingly, Sensex and Nifty settled at 60,223 points and 17,925 points, up 0.6 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively, from their previous close.

On Wednesday, banking, financial services, oil and gas, and realty stocks rose the most.

Among the stocks, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank, JSW Steel, Grasim rallied the most, rising 5.0 per cent, 4.4 per cent, 3.5 per cent, 3.4 per cent, 3.1 per cent, respectively, data showed.

Tech Mahindra, Infosys, HCL Technologies, Divi's Labs, and Wipro were some of the stocks that declined during the session.

During the session, shares of news channel NDTV hit the 10 per cent upper circuit.

According to Rohit Singre, Senior Technical Analyst at LKP Securities: "Now the index has reached near its good hurdle zone of 18,000-18,100 where one can look for trimming their long position. Also, if it manages to sustain the above said resistance, we may see fresh breakout and then we may inch towards previous swing high.

"On the other hand, good support zone is formed near 17,800-17,700, and any dip near the mentioned support zone will be again fresh buying opportunity."

The banking sector outshone other sectoral indices as few private lenders reported double-digit business growth during the third quarter, said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

"US and Asian markets traded weak ahead of the release of the US Fed meeting minutes while European indexes held ground," Nair said.