Mumbai, Jan 30 (IANS): The Indian stock market on Thursday continued its upward journey for the third consecutive session, with both the Sensex and the Nifty closing in the positive territory, as all eyes are now on the Union Budget 2025-26.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex gained 226.85 points or 0.3 per cent to end the day at 76,759.81. During the session, the index touched a high of 76,898.63 and a low of 76,401.13.

The Nifty climbed 86.40 points or 0.37 per cent to settle at 23,249.50. The index moved between 23,311.15 and 23,139.20 throughout the trading day.

On Nifty, 35 stocks closed in the green. The top performers included Bharat Electronics, Power Grid Corporation, Cipla, Hero MotoCorp, and Bharti Airtel which went up to 4.87 per cent.

On the flip side, Tata Motors, ITC Hotels, Shriram Finance, and Bajaj Finserv were among the 17 stocks that ended lower.

The Nifty Smallcap 100 index saw a slight gain of 0.12 per cent, while the Nifty Midcap 100 ended almost flat with a 0.01 per cent dip.

Sectoral performance was mixed. Nifty FMCG, Healthcare, Financial Services, Pharma, and OMCs indices closed with gains of up to 1.55 per cent.

However, the Nifty IT index fell 1.14 per cent to 42,426.65, dragged down by Coforge and Mphasis.

The India VIX, which measures market volatility, surged 6.70 per cent to 17.39 points which indicates a rise in market fluctuations.

According to market experts, in the final hour of trade, a strong recovery helped Nifty close higher at 23,249.50.

On January 29, the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained net sellers for the 19th consecutive session as they sold equities worth Rs 2,586 crore, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 1,792.71 crore on the same day.