Mumbai, Feb 15 : Nifty continued its previous session's momentum and closed with gains of 71 points at 21,911 levels near the day's high on Thursday, said Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

The broader market outperformed with Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 up 1 per cent each, he said.

PSU stocks resumed their ongoing rally after a short pause. Oil and gas posted solid gain due to impressive quarterly results, improved GRM and strong growth expected in India's oil consumption going forward, he said.

With the end of Q3 results season, the focus is now shifting to fundamentals and economic macro data. Domestic equities are taking support from better-than-expected inflation, which would keep the trend positive.

"Nifty is now close to 22,000 as well as its all-time high, and we expect it to surpass these levels and touch new highs," Khemka said.

Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services, said the benchmark indexes inched higher on Thursday, mirroring the positive sentiment prevailing in the global market.

"The disinflation trend in the eurozone, coupled with better earnings, lifted investor sentiment. Despite the broad-based recovery, market participants are more inclined towards quality largecap stocks owing to the prevailing valuation gap, which led them to exercise caution on small and midcaps," he said.

/IANS