The Indian equity benchmarks snapped their four-day losing streak on Monday led by gains in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, ITC and Reliance Industries. The Sensex rallied as much as 988 points and Nifty 50 index touched an intraday high of 18,084.
The Sensex advanced 721 points to close at 60,566 and Nifty 50 index rose 208 points to settle at 18,015.
In the last four trading sessions markets witnessed a sharp selloff in which the Nifty corrected by 3.33 per cent.
"Markets started the week on a strong note and gained over a percent, taking a breather after the recent slide. After the initial uptick, the Nifty index gradually inched higher as the day progressed however some profit taking in the last half an hour trimmed some gains. Participants shouldn’t read much into a single day rebound and wait for the sustainability of the move. We have the next hurdle around the 18,150-18,200 zone in Nifty so we recommend utilising further recovery to reduce positions. In absence of any major event, the upcoming expiry of December month derivatives contracts will keep the traders busy," said Ajit Mishra of Religare Broking.
Buying was visible across sectors as 13 of fifteen sector gauges compiled by the National Stock Exchange ended higher led by the measure of PSU Bank shares rising over 7 per cent.
Nifty Realty, Private Bank, Metal, Media, Bank and Financial Services indices rose over 2 per cent each.
On the other hand, recently outperforming pharma and healthcare shares faced selling pressure.
Mid- and small-cap shares outperformed their larger peers as Nifty Midcap 100 index rose 2.7 per cent and Nifty Smallcap 100 index climbed nearly 4 per cent.
Among the individual shares, NDTV rose as much as 5 per cent top hit an intraday high of Rs 357.60 on the BSE after its founders Radhika Roy and Pranoy Roy divested most of their shares in NDTV to Adani Group's AMG Media Network.
State Bank of India was top Nifty gainer, the stock rose 4 per cent to close at Rs 597. IndusInd Bank, Hindalco, Coal India, Bajaj Finserv, Tata Steel, Axis Bank, ITC, Ultratech Cement, Hero MotoCorp, HDFC Bank, and Tata Motors rose between 2-4 per cent.
On the flipside, Cipla, Divi's Labs, Dr Reddy's Labs, Nestle, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Apollo Hospitals, Tata Consumer Products and Sun Pharma were among the notable losers.
The overall market breadth was extremely positive as 2,858 shares ended higher while 785 closed lower on the BSE.
