Bucking the broader market trend, shares of Wipro and HDFC Bank ended lower despite posting good quarterly numbers.

Extending gains for the second day, the 30-share Sensex rose by 75.01 points, or 0.38 per cent, to close at 20,039.04, a level last seen on January 6, 2011.

The gauge had surged 146 points in the previous session.

"The partial decontrol in diesel prices has triggered a rally in Oil Marketing Companies. While global cues have been helpful, what is the heartening is that FII inflows continue unabated," said Amar Ambani, Head of Research, IIFL.

Besides, a firming trend in Asia and higher opening in Europe on reports of Chinese economy accelerating for the first time in two years and US housing sales jumping to a four-year high further supported the uptrend.

The broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty rose by 25.20 points, or 0.42 per cent, to 6,064.40, after touching the day's high of 6,083.40.

State-run oil and gas major, ONGC, was the top gainer in the Sensex pack with a rise of 7.31 per cent. Petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries (RIL) gained 1.05 per cent ahead of Q3 earnings. Others like BPCL, Indian Oil Corp and Oil India also notched up handsome gains.

Besides refinery, PSU, power and realty stocks also attracted good buying support while IT, teck, auto and metal stocks fell on profit-booking.

Wipro tanked almost 8 per cent and HDFC Bank ended 0.63 per cent lower. However, ITC closed 0.70 per cent after recording over 21 per cent quarterly profit rise.

Asian stocks ended higher after economic reports in the world's two largest economies, the US and China, beat market estimates according to reports. Key indices in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan rose by 0.50 per cent to 2.86 per cent.

However, Euorpean markets were trading narrowly mixed as key indices in France and UK both inched up by 0.18 per cent while in Germany eased by 0.03 per cent.

In the local market, 16 scrips from the Sensex pack ended higher while 14 stocks closed lower. Other gainers from the Sensex pack were NTPC (4.59 pc), Maruti Suzuki (3.26 pc), Gail India (2.10 pc), HDFC (1.56 pc), Tata Power (1.55 pc), ICICI Bank (1.08 pc) and SBI (0.93 pc).

However, Hero Motocorp dropped by 2.86 per cent, Dr Reddy's Lab (2.60 pc), HUL (2.10 pc), Sterlite Ind (2.03 pc), Jindal Steel (2.03 pc), M&M (1.70 pc), Bharti Airtel (1.50 pc) and HDFC Bank (1.18 pc), according to updated BSE data.

Among the sectoral indices, the BSE-Oil&Gas rose by 3.09 per cent, followed by the BSE-PSU (2.77 pc), the BSE-Power (1.44 pc) and the BSE-Realty (0.86 pc). However, the BSE-IT and the BSE-Teck both fell by 1.13 per cent each.

The total market breadth continued to remain negative as 1,331 stocks finished lower while 971 ended higher. Total turnover firmed up further to Rs 2,590.55 crore from Rs 2,504.48 crore yesterday.