Buy or sell stocks, July 18 -- The Indian stock market benchmarks, the Sensex and the Nifty 50, jumped on Friday, 17 July, largely due to healthy gains in shares of Reliance Industries and private bank heavyweights ahead of their Q1 results.

Index heavyweights Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Axis Bank powered the benchmarks even as mid and small-cap segments remained under pressure amid escalating US-Iran tensions and higher crude oil prices.

Sensex jumped 965 points, or 1.25%, to close at 78,151.45, while Nifty 50 jumped 262 points, or 1.09%, to end at 24,334.30.

Sumeet Bagadia, Executive Director at Choice Broking, highlighted that from a technical perspective, Nifty formed a strong bullish candle...