Sensex and Nifty extended gains in late afternoon trade on Wednesday after staging a sharp intraday recovery from early losses, supported by strong buying in Reliance Industries, auto, capital goods and energy stocks. At 2:56 pm, the Sensex was up 199.57 points or 0.27 percent at 75,400.42, while the Nifty gained 68.90 points or 0.29 percent to 23,686.90. Market breadth also improved significantly, with advances overtaking declines. Energy, power, auto and infrastructure stocks led sectoral gains, while FMCG, media and select IT stocks continued to lag. Broader markets outperformed benchmark indices, with the Nifty Midcap 100 index rising over 0.5 percent.