The Indian equity benchmarks surged over 2 per cent on Monday fuelled by a rally in HDFC and HDFC Bank after their boards approved merger of the country's largest mortgage lender HDFC with the country's largest private lender HDFC Bank making way for the country's second largest entity by market capitalisation after Reliance Industries. The Sensex rose as much as 1,568 points and Nifty 50 reclaimed its 18,000 mark after a gap of two-and-a-half months.
The Sensex surged 2.25 per cent or 1,335 points to close at 60,612 and Nifty 50 index advanced 383 points to settle at 18,053.
HDFC rallied as much as much as 16.5 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 2,855 on the BSE, the most in nearly two decades, data from BSE showed after its board approved the merger with the country's largest private lender HDFC Bank. Meanwhile, HDFC Bank rallied the most since March 25, 2020. Shares in HDFC Bank jumped as much as 14.3 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 1,721.85. Upmove in HDFC and HDFC Bank led to over 900 points rally in the Sensex.
Other HDFC group companies like HDFC Life and HDFC AMC also saw buying interest with both the shares closing 3.81 per cent and 3.4 per cent each respectively.
Adani Ports was among the top Nifty gainers, the stock rose 4.1 per cent to close at Rs 818. Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hero MotoCorp, Hindalco, Divi's Labs, Hindustan Unilever, IndusInd Bank and Larsen & Toubro also rose between 2-3.7 per cent.
On the flipside, Infosys, Tata Consumer Products, Titan and JSW Steel were among the notable losers.
Buying was visible across sectors as all the 15 sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the Nifty Financial Services index's 4.6 per cent gain. Nifty Bank, Private Bank, Metal, Pharma, Auto and Healthcare indices also rose between 1-4 per cent.
Broader markets also witnessed buying interest as Nifty Midcap 100 and Nifty Smallcap 100 indexes rose 1.6 per cent each.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,681 shares ended higher while 848 closed lower on the BSE.
