Benchmark equity indices climbed on Wednesday, with the Nifty hitting its fresh record high level and Sensex climbing nearly 600 points, amid buying in market blue-chip stocks HDFC Bank and Reliance Industries.

Buying in IT stocks also propelled the rally in the markets.

The NSE Nifty went up by 177.1 points or 0.76 per cent to hit its new all-time high of 23,441.95 during the late morning trade. The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 593.94 points or 0.77 per cent to 77,050.53.

The BSE benchmark is just 28.51 points away from breaching its previous lifetime peak of 77,079.04 hit on Monday.

Among the 30 Sensex companies, Power Grid, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, HDFC Bank, Tata Steel, State Bank of India, Bajaj Finance, Wipro, Tata Motors and Reliance Industries were the major gainers.

Hindustan Unilever, Titan, Asian Paints and Mahindra & Mahindra were the laggards.

In Asian markets, Seoul and Shanghai traded in the positive territory while Tokyo and Hong Kong quoted lower.

US markets ended mostly higher on Tuesday.

"The 32 per cent decline in India VIX during the last 5 days indicates that the days of heightened volatility are over and the market has entered a consolidation phase. From now on the focus will be on fundamentals and news flows," said V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services.

Tonight's US inflation numbers and the Fed policy outcome will influence the direction of the global equity market, he added.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 0.44 per cent to USD 82.28 a barrel.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) offloaded equities worth Rs 111.04 crore on Tuesday, according to exchange data.

The BSE benchmark declined 33.49 points or 0.04 per cent to settle at 76,456.59 on Tuesday. In a volatile trade, the Nifty ended marginally up by 5.65 points or 0.02 per cent at 23,264.85.

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